-!g.iaB!*ia*li.'-"'"' 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARIES 
 
 ITHACA, N. Y. 14853 
 
 John M. Echols 
 Collection on Southeast Asia 
 JOHN M. OLIN LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3507.O73P7 
 
 The pointing man, a Burmese mystery, by lUla 
 
 3 1924 010 615 486 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924010615486 
 
THE POINTING MAN 
 
• BY THE SAME AUTBOR 
 
 THE FURTHER SIDE 
 OF THE DOOR 
 
 AN IRISH MYSTERY 
 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
THE 
 
 POINTING MAN 
 
 <iA 'Burmese <i^ystery 
 
 BY 
 
 MARJORIE DOUIE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 68i FIFTH AVENUE 
 
Copyright, 1920, by 
 E. P, BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 AU RigUs Reserved 
 
 Printed In the United Statesjof America 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 IN WHICH THE DESTINY THAT PLAYS WITH MEN MOVES THE PIECES 
 
 ON THE BOARD I 
 
 II 
 
 TELLS THE STORY OF A LOSS, AND HOW IT AFFECTED THE REV. 
 
 FRANCIS HEATH 13 
 
 III 
 
 INDICATES A STANDPOINT COMMONLY SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF THE JESUIT FATHERS 25 
 
 IV 
 INTRODUCES THE READER TO MRS. WILDER IN A SECRETIVE MOOD . 36 
 
 V 
 
 CRAVEN JOICEY, THE BANKER, FINDS THAT HIS MEMORY IS NOT TO 
 
 BE TRUSTED 45 
 
 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 56 
 
 VII 
 
 FINDS THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH READING GEORGE HERBERT'S 
 POEMS, AND LEAVES HIM PLEDGED TO A POSSIBLY COMPROMISING 
 SILENCE 66 
 
 'v 
 
vr CONTENTS 
 
 VIII 
 
 PAGE 
 SHOWS HOW THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS OF ONE NIGHT HIDES MANY 
 
 EMOTIONS, AND MRS. WILDER IS FRANKLY INQUISITIVE . 78 
 
 IX 
 
 MRS. WILDER IS PRESENTED IN A MELTING MOOD, AND DRAYCOTT. 
 WILDER IS FORCED TO RECALL THE LINES COMMENCING "aTOOL 
 THERE was" 92 
 
 X 
 
 IN WHICH CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME BY A SUDDEN INDISPOSITION, 
 AND HARTLEY, WITHOUT LOOKING FOR HIM, FINDS THE MAN 
 HE WANTED I02 
 
 XI 
 
 SHOWS HOW THE " WHISPER FROM THE DAWN OF LIFE" ENABLES 
 CORYNDON TO TAKE THE DRIFTING THREADS BETWEEN HIS 
 FINGERS 113 
 
 XII 
 
 SHOWS HOW A MAN MAY CLIMB A HUNDRED STEPS INTO A PASSION- 
 LESS PEACE, AND RETURN AGAIN TO A WORLD OF SMALL 
 TORMENTS I25 
 
 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 I35 
 
 XIV 
 
 TELLS HOW SHIRAZ, THE PUNJABI, ADMITTED THE FRAILTIES OF 
 ORDINARY HUMANITY, AND HOW CORYNDON ATTENDED AFTER- 
 NOON SERVICE, AND CONSIDERED THE VEXED QUESTION OF 
 TEMPERAMENT 149 
 
CONTENTS vii 
 
 XV 
 
 PAGE 
 IN WHICH THE FURTHERING OF A STRANGE COMRADESHIP IS CON« 
 TINUED, AIJD A BEGGAR FROM AMRITZAR CRIES IN THE STREETS 
 OF MANGADONE 162 
 
 XVI 
 
 IN WHICH IsEH SHIN IS BREATHED UPON BY A JOSS AND EXPERIENCES 
 THE TERROR OF A MAN WHO TOUCHES THE VEIL BEHIND WHICH 
 THE IMMORTALS DWELL 173 
 
 XVII 
 
 TELLS HOW CORYNDON LEARNS FROM THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH WHAT 
 
 THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH NEVER TOLD HIM 184 
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR AND SHOWS WHAT 
 
 LIES BEHIND I98 
 
 XIX 
 
 IN WHICH LEH SHIN WHISPERS A STORY INTO THE EAR OF SHIRAZ, 
 THE PUNJABI; THE BURDEN OE WHICH IS: "haVE I FOUND 
 THEE, O MINE ENEMY?" 211 
 
 XX 
 
 CRAVEN JOICEY, THE BANKER, IS FACED BY A MAN WITH A WHIP IN 
 
 HIS HAND, AND CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE 220 
 
 XXI 
 
 DEMONSTRATES THE PERSUASIVE POWER OF A KNIFE EDGE, AND 
 
 TELLS A STORY OF A GOLD LACfiUER BOWL 235 
 
 XXII 
 
 IN WHICH CORYNDON HOLDS THE LAST THREAD AND DRAWS IT 
 
 TIGHT 247 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 XXIII 
 
 PAGE 
 DEMONSTRATES THE TRUTH OF THE AXIOM THAT "tHE UNEXPECTED 
 
 ALWAYS happens" 256 
 
 XXIV 
 IN WHICH A WOODEN IMAGE POINTS FOR THE LAST TIME .... 268 
 
 GLOSSARY 277 
 
THE POINTING MAN 
 
THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 under- 
 note 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 
 ^ojraer to temporary mud. 
 
 The main street of the huge bazaar in Manga- 
 done 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 appar- 
 ently devoted only to the sale of mirrors, shops 
 where tailors sat on the ground and worked at sew- 
 ing machines ; sweet stalls, food stalls, cafes, flanked 
 
2 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 an- 
 nounced 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 chil- 
 dren swarmed naked and entirely unconcerned upon 
 every landing, and out on» the verandas that gave 
 
DESTINY MOVES THE PIECES 3 
 
 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 elEgy in tight breeches, with pointing yel- 
 low hands and a smiling yellow face, stood out- 
 side 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 
 
S THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 Mirza- 
 pore; 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 straw- 
 berry-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 Ootaca- 
 mund, who had followed several trades before he 
 
DESTINY MOVES THE PIECES 5 
 
 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 look- 
 ing 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. 
 
6 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "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 l?ack of his chair and crossed one leg over his 
 knee. He could hear Absalom closing the shop be- 
 hind 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. 
 
DESTINY MOVES THE PIECES 7 
 
 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 re- 
 clined in comfort behind fine pairs of trotting horses. 
 
 Their time for passing having gone, and the 
 street relieved of the disturbance, lamps were car- 
 ried 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 twink- 
 ling. 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 indi- 
 cating 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 waver- 
 ing torch-lights in the water. Ships' port-holes 
 
8 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 along- 
 side and overtime work still continued. Little sam- 
 pans 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 com- 
 mercial 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 Para- 
 dise 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 cathe- 
 dral brooding over the native quarter, seen in Para- 
 
DESTINY MOVES THE PIECES 9 
 
 dise 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 cool- 
 ness 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 con- 
 cerned if it had not been for the fact that an unusual 
 
lo THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 
 pfeople lay on their beds and tried to sleep; but in 
 the small bungalow where the Rev. Francis Heatk 
 lived with a solitary Sapper officer, the bed that 
 
DESTINY MOVES THE PIECES ii 
 
 he slept in was smooth and unstirred by restless toss- 
 ing 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 re- 
 lieve 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 clergy- 
 man 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, drppping the 
 pulseless wrist. 
 
 "Who can tell?" said the Rev. Francis Heath. 
 
 "He'd better keep out of the way," continued 
 
13 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 fuU 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 evferywhere. Mrs. Wilder, 
 who knew exactly who to treat with distant conde- 
 scension and who to ignore entirely, invariably in- 
 
 13 
 
14 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 eluded him in her intimate dinners, and the Chief 
 Commissioner, also a bachelor, invited him fre- 
 quently 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, un- 
 likely 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 \n(riting-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 im- 
 ploring 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 STORY OF A LOSS 15 
 
 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 out- 
 side. Hartley got up and peered through the cur- 
 tain 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 feel- 
 ings as an animal. 
 
 The boy reappeared after a pause, bearing a mes- 
 sage to the effect that Mhtoon Pah begged an imme- 
 diate 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 
 
i6 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 quar- 
 ter, 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. 
 
THE STORY OF A LOSS 17 
 
 "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, Thdkin, 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 evi- 
 dence 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, 
 
i8 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 clergy- 
 man'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 advan- 
 tage." 
 
 "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 princi- 
 pal facts to the head office, mentioning the name of 
 Leh Shin and the story of the gold lacquer bowl, and 
 
THE STORY OF A LOSS 19 
 
 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 pro- 
 tuberant 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. Fitz- 
 gibbon, 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 talk- 
 ing for a little, glad to shake off his feeling of de- 
 pression. 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." 
 
20 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "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 70U just lately." 
 
 Joicey looked up and nodded. 
 
 "I'll come," he said, laconically, and Hartley, fin- 
 ishing 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 en- 
 tirely 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." 
 
THE STORY OF A LOSS 21 
 
 Hartley looked at him; there was something un- 
 deniably 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 try- 
 ing 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 sun- 
 set?" 
 
 "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 
 
22 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 
 
THE STORY OF A LOSS 23 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 reluc- 
 tance, 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 
 
24 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 Rector of St. Jude's parish, and his fierce and angry 
 refusal to talk reasonably. 
 
 He threw open his windowsi 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. 
 
Ill 
 
 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 differ- 
 ent 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 
 
 25 
 
26 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 cheap blade stuff that hung around him like the gar- 
 ments 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 Hart- 
 ley'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 re- 
 gardless 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, watch- 
 ing the officer out of small pig eyes. He was chew- 
 
A JESUIT STANDPOINT 27 
 
 ing something slowly, turning it about and about in- 
 side a small, narrow slit of a mouth, and his whole 
 expression was cunning arid 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 peculiar- 
 ities of the people he dealt with, but Leh Shin's as- 
 sistant impressed him unpleasantly. Everything he 
 did was offensive, and his whole suggestion loath- 
 some. 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 ques- 
 tions. 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 Aljsalom. 
 
 "Let me advise you to be truthful, Leh Shin," said 
 Hartley. "You may be called upon to give an ac- 
 
28 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 count 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 re- 
 called 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 cred- 
 itable 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. 
 
A JESUIT STANDPOINT 29 
 
 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 mag- 
 got-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 as- 
 sistant. 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 remem- 
 bered 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. 
 
30 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "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 Hart- 
 ley, 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 Rev- 
 erend 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, 
 
A JESUIT STANDPOINT 31 
 
 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 
 
32 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 bade, 
 and hurried in to get a tray, which he held out for 
 the customary card. 
 
 "Take that away," said Hartley, "and tell the 
 Padre Sahib that I must see him." 
 
 "The Padre 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 with- 
 out 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. 
 
A JESUIT STANDPOINT 33 
 
 "I've been trying to call on the Padre," 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 prob- 
 ably 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 
 
34 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 more definitely he blocked the path, the more sure 
 Hartley became that he did so of set purpose. 
 
 "But why, mhy?" 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 Padre Sahib is out?" he said, in his brisk, 
 matter-of-fact tones. 
 
 "The Padre Sahib is upstairs," said the boy, with 
 an immovable face ; and Atkins went up quickly. 
 
 "Ha;llo, Heath, I met Hartley just now, and he 
 said you were out." 
 
 Heath looked up from a sheet of paper laid out 
 on the writing-table before him. 
 
 "I did not feel up to seeing Hartley," he said, a 
 little stiffly. "It is not a convenient hour for callers, 
 so I availed myself of an excuse." 
 
 "He told me to tell you that it was rather a press- 
 ing matter that brought him here, and I said that I 
 would give you his message, and that you would 
 probably go round to see him." 
 
 "You said that, Atkins?" 
 
 His face was so drawn and unnatural that Atkins 
 looked at him in surprise. 
 
 "I suppose I was right?" 
 
 "If Hartley wants to see me," said Heath, in a 
 loud, angry voice, "or if he wants to come bullying 
 and blustering, he must write and make an appoint- 
 ment. I have every right to protect myself from a 
 man who asks personal and most impertinent ques- 
 
A JESUIT STANDPOINT 35 
 
 "Hartley, impertinent?" Atkins' eyes grew round. 
 
 "When I say impertinent, I mean not pertinent, 
 or bearing upon any subject that I intend to discuss 
 with him." 
 
 The Rev. Francis Heath got up and walked to- 
 wards the window, turning his back upon the room. 
 
 "I don't mix in social politics," said Atkins, sooth- 
 ingly. "But at the same time, I can't understand 
 you. Heath. What the devil does Hartley want to 
 know?" 
 
 The clergjmian caught at the curtain and gripped 
 it as he had gripped the back of his chair at the 
 Club. 
 
 "Never ask me that again, Atkins," he said, in a 
 low, hoarse voice. "Never speak to me about this 
 again." 
 
 Atkins retreated quickly from the room; there 
 was something in the manner of the Rev. Francis 
 Heath that he did not like, and he registered a 
 mental vow to let the subject drop, so far as he, a 
 lieutenant in His Majesty's Royal Engineers, was 
 concerned, and never to allude to it, either for "fear 
 or favour," again. 
 
IV 
 
 INTRODUCES THE READER TO MRS. WILDER IN A 
 SECRETIVE MOOD 
 
 DRAYCOTT WILDER was a man who 
 hoarded his passions and concentrated them- 
 upon a very few objects. His work came first, and 
 his intense ambition, and after his work, his wife. 
 She was the right sort of wife for a man who put 
 worldly success first, and through the years of their 
 marriage had helped him a great deal more than 
 he ever admitted. Clarice Wilder was beautiful, 
 and had a surface cleverness combined with a natural 
 gift of tact that made her an admirable hostess. 
 She could talk to anybody and send them away 
 pleased and satisfied with themselves, and she had 
 made the best of Draycott for a good number of 
 years. She had married him when marriage seemed 
 a big thing and a wonderful thing, and her country 
 home in Devonshire a small, breathless place where 
 nothing ever happened, and where life was one long 
 Sunday at Home, and Draycott, back from the East, 
 had appeared as interesting as a white Othello. 
 
 For a time she received all she needed out of life, 
 and she threw herself into her husband's promotion- 
 hunger; understanding it, because she, too, wanted 
 to reign, and it gave her an inexplicable feeling of 
 
 36 
 
MRS. WILDER 37 
 
 respect for him, for Clarice knew that had she been 
 born a man, she, too, would have worked and 
 schemed and pushed herself out into the front of 
 the ranks. She combined with him as only an ambi- 
 tious woman can combine, and she supplied all he 
 lacked. It filled her mind, and she never awoke the 
 jealousy that lay like a sleeping python in the heart 
 of Draycott Wilder. It was when they were in 
 India that Clarice, for the first time, lost her grip 
 and allowed her senses to get the better of her com- 
 mon sense, and she became for a brief time a woman 
 with a very troublesome heart. Hector Copple- 
 stone, a young man newly come to the Indian Civil 
 Service, was sent to their Punjaub station. He made 
 Mrs. Wilder realize her own charm, he made her 
 terribly conscious that she was older than him, he 
 made her anxious and distracted and madly, idioti- 
 cally in love with him. She forgot that there were 
 other things in life, she put aside ambition for a 
 stronger temptation, and she did not care what Dray- 
 cott thought or supposed. 
 
 No one ever knew what happened, but everyone 
 guessed that Wilder had made trouble. They left 
 India under the same cloud of silence, and they re- 
 appeared in Mangadone to outside eyes the same 
 couple who had pulled together for successful years 
 of marriage ; and if some whisper, for whispers carry 
 far in the East, came after them, no one regarded 
 it, and the Copplfistone Incident was considered per- 
 manently closed. Draycott Wilder was the same 
 silent man who was the despair of his dinner part- 
 ners, and Clarice had her old brilliancy and her old 
 
38 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 way of making men pleased with themselves; and 
 though some people, chiefly young girls, described 
 her as "hard," she represented a centre of attraction, 
 and her one mad year was a thing of the past. 
 
 Among the men who went to the terraced house 
 in its huge gardens, she always particularly wel- 
 comed Hartley, the Head of the Police He never 
 demanded effort, and he had a good nature and a 
 flow of small talk. Nearly every v/oman liked 
 Hartley, though very few of them could have said 
 why. He had fair, fluffy hair and a pink face; he 
 was just weak enough to be easily influenced, and 
 he fell platonically in love with every new woman 
 he met without being in the least faithless to the 
 others. Mrs. Wilder had a comer in her heart for 
 him, and he, in return, looked upon Mrs. Wilder as 
 a brilliant and lovely woman very much too good for 
 Draycott. He did not know that he took his ideas 
 from her whenever she wished him to do so; Mrs. 
 Wilder, like a clever conjurer, palmed her ideas like 
 cards, and upheld the principle of free will while 
 she did so, and if she had desired to impress Hartley 
 with fifty-two new notions he would have left her 
 positive in his own mind that they were his own. 
 
 Thus, Clarice Wilder may be classed as that melo- 
 dramatic tjT)e that goes about labelled "dangerous," 
 only she had the wit to take off the label and to ad- 
 vertise herself under the guise of a harmless sooth- 
 ing mixture. 
 
 The bungalow in which the Wilders lived was an 
 immense place, standing over a terraced garden 
 beautifully planted with flowers. Steps, covered 
 
MRS. WILDER 39 
 
 with white marble, led from terrace to terrace, and 
 down to a jade-green lake where water-lilies blos- 
 somed and pink lotus flowers floated. Dark green 
 trees plumed with shaded purple flowers accentuated 
 the massed yellow of the golden laburnums. The 
 topmost flight of steps led up to the house, and was 
 flanked on either side with variegated laurel growing 
 in sea-green pots, and the red avenue, that took its 
 lengthy way from the main road, curved into a wide 
 sweep outside the flower-hung veranda. 
 
 Hartley arrived at the house just as Mrs. Wilder 
 was having tea alone in the big drawing-room, and 
 she smiled up at him with her curious eyes, that were 
 the colour of granite. Without exactly knowing 
 what her age was. Hartley felt, somehow, that she 
 looked younger than she was, and that she did not 
 do so without some aid from "boxes," but he liked 
 her none the less for that, and possibly admired her 
 more. He sat down and asked her how she was, 
 and, as he looked at her, he wondered to think that 
 she had ever fainted. Clearly, she was the last 
 woman on earth who could be accused of Victorian 
 ways, and to see her in her white lace dress, dark, 
 distinguished, and perfectly mistress of her emotions, 
 was to be bewildered at the memory. She treated 
 the question with scant ceremony, and remarked 
 upon the fact that the night had been hot, and that 
 everyone had felt it. 
 
 "I've got an excellent reason for remembering 
 the date," said Hartley reflectively. "By the way, 
 wasn't Absalom, old Mhtoon Pah's assistant, once 
 a dressing-boy or something in your establishment ?" 
 
40 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "He was, and then he went sick, and took to 
 this other kind of work." 
 
 "He was quite honest, I suppose?" 
 
 "Perfectly honest," said Mrs. Wilder, with a 
 slight lift of her eyebrows, "and a nice little boy. 
 I hope that question doesn't mean that you are pro- 
 fessionally interested in his past?" she laughed care- 
 lessly. "I am quite prepared to stand up for Absa- 
 lom; he was the soul of integrity." 
 
 Hartley put down his cup on the table. 
 
 "The boy has disappeared," he said, talking with 
 interest, for the subject filled his mind. 
 
 "But when, and how? I saw him quite lately." 
 
 Hartley's round, China-blue eyes fixed upon her. 
 
 "Can you tell me when you saw him?" 
 
 "One night — evening, I should say — I was out 
 riding and I passed him going towards the wharf, 
 not towards the wharf exactly, but to the houses that 
 lie out by the end of the tram lines." 
 
 "What evening? I wish you could remember 
 for me." 
 
 "It was the night of my own dinner-party." 
 
 "Then that was July the twenty-ninth?" 
 
 Mrs. Wilder looked at him, and bit her lip. 
 
 "Was it the twenty-ninth?" Hartley repeated 
 the question. 
 
 "Probably it was, if you say so. I told you just 
 now that I had Burma head. But where has Absa- 
 lom gone to?" 
 
 Hartley took up his cup again and stirred the 
 spoon round and round. 
 
MRS. WILDER 41 
 
 "For^ve me for pelting you with questions, but 
 did you see Mr. Heath that evening?" 
 
 "Now, what are you trying to get out of me, Mr. 
 Hartley? Did Mr. Heath tell you that he had 
 seen me?" 
 
 Hartley stared at his feet. 
 
 "Heath has got Burma head, too, and won't tell 
 me anything. It might help his memory if you were 
 able to say whether you had seen him or not that 
 evening." 
 
 Mrs. Wilder's fine eyes glittered into a smile that 
 was not exactly mirthful or pleasant. 
 
 "I don't see that I can possibly say one way or 
 another. I often do ... I often do see him go- 
 ing about the native quarter when I ride through, 
 but I do not write it down in my book, so it is quite 
 impossible for me to say." 
 
 "Anyhow, you saw Absalom ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I saw the boy. What a persistent man 
 you are, and you haven't told me a word yourself." 
 
 "Absalom was to have got a gold lacquer bowl 
 that you ordered from Mhtoon Pah?" 
 
 "Quite correct," laughed Mrs. Wilder with more 
 of her usual manner. "That old Barabbas has never 
 sent it to me yet, either. I ordered it a month ago. 
 I love lacquer because it looks like nothing else, and 
 particularly gold lacquer." 
 
 "Well, all I can tell you is that Absalom had an 
 order from Mhtoon Pah to get the bowl the next 
 morning, if it was to be got, and he went away as 
 usual the night of the twenty-ninth, and never ap- 
 peared again. Heath saw him, and you saw him, 
 
42 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 and that is pretty nearly all the evidence I can col- 
 lect." 
 
 "Evidence?" Mrs. Wilder's voice had a piercing 
 note in it. 
 
 "Yes, evidence. You see the only way to trace a 
 man is to find out exactly who saw him last, and 
 where." 
 
 "Ah, I see. You find out what everyone was do- 
 ing, and where they were, and you piece the bits in. 
 It's like a jig-saw, and how very interesting it 
 must be." 
 
 Hartley laughed. 
 
 "Not what the other people were doing exactly, 
 but where they were. It is something to know that 
 you saw the boy, but I wish you could remember if 
 you saw Heath." 
 
 Mrs. Wilder got up and walked to the window. 
 
 "I do hope he will be found. Did he take my 
 lacquer bowl with him?" 
 
 "He had not got it," said Hartley, in his steady, 
 matter-of-fact voice. 
 
 "Are you worried about it?" She turned and 
 looked across the room. "Why should you be? If 
 Absalom has chosen to leave, I really don't see why 
 he shouldn't be allowed to go in peace." 
 
 "I don't know that he did choose to leave; that 
 is just the point." 
 
 He was longing to ask her another question about 
 Heath, and yet he did not like to press her. 
 
 "Here are some callers," she remarked, and then, 
 with a short laugh, "I wonder if they were out and 
 about that evening. If you go on like this, Mr. 
 
MRS. WILDER 43 
 
 Hartley, you will make yourself the most popular 
 man in Mangadone. Take my advice and let Absa- 
 lom come back in his own way. Perhaps he is look- 
 ing for my bowl." She turned her head and glanced 
 at some cards that the bearer had brought in on a 
 tray. "Show the ladies in, Gulab." 
 
 In a few minutes the room was full of voices and 
 laughter, and Mrs. Wilder became unconscious of 
 Hartley. She remained so unconscious of him that 
 he felt uncomfortable and began to wonder if he 
 had offended her in any way. He looked at her 
 from time to time, and when he got up to go she 
 gave him her hand as though she was only just sure 
 that he was really there. 
 
 The disappearance of Absalom was taking strange 
 shapes in his mind, and he had so far come to the 
 conclusion that Heath knew something about Absa- 
 lom, and his visit to Mrs. Wilder added the puzzling 
 fact to his mental arithmetic that Mrs. Wilder knew 
 something about Heath. It was one thing to corner 
 Heath, but Heath standing behind Mrs. Wilder's 
 protection, became formidable. 
 
 Yet it was not in the Cantonment that Hartley ex- 
 pected to find any clue to the vanished Absalom : it 
 was down in the native quarter. Down there where 
 the Chinese eating-houses were beginning to fill, and 
 where the night life was only just awaking from its 
 slumber of the day, was where Absalom, the Chris- 
 tian boy, had last been seen, and it was there, if 
 anywhere, that he must be searched for and found. 
 
 What possible connection could there be between 
 an upright, Godly man who went his austere way 
 
44 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 along the high, cold path of duty, and a woman 
 whose husband was madly grasping at the biggest 
 prize of his profession? What link could bind life 
 with life, when lives were divided by such yawning 
 gulfs of space and class and race? To connect Mrs. 
 Wilder with Heath was almost as mad a piece of 
 folly as to connect Absalom with the clergyman, 
 and yet, Hartley argued, he had not set out to do 
 it. Something that had not begun with any act or 
 question of his had brought about the junction of 
 the ideas, and he felt like a man in a dark room 
 trying to make his way to the window, and meeting 
 with unrecognizable obstacles. 
 
 The small tinkle of the church bell attracted his 
 attention, and, following a sudden whim, he went 
 into the tin building and sat down near the door. 
 Mr. Heath did not look down the sparsely-filled 
 church as he read the evening service, and he prayed 
 with an almost violent fervour. Certainly to-night - 
 the Rev. Francis Heath was praying as though he 
 was alone, and the odd imploring misery of his voice 
 struck Hartley. — "To perceive and know the things 
 that we ought to do, and to have grace and power 
 faithfully to fulfil the same." 
 
 Heath's voice had broken into a kind of sob, the 
 sound that tells of strain and hysteria, but what was 
 there in Mangadone to make a respectable parson 
 strained and hysterical? 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY, THE BANKER, FINDS THAT HIS 
 MEMORY IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED 
 
 JUST as Draycott Wilder stood high in the eyes 
 of the Powers that govern the Civil Service of 
 India, so, too, in his own way, was Craven Joicey, 
 the Banker, a man with a solid reputation. If you 
 build a reputation solidly for the first half of a life- 
 time, it will last the latter half without much atten- 
 tion or care, and, contrariwise, a bad beginning is 
 frequently stronger than any reformation, and 
 stronger than integrity that comes too late. 
 
 Joicey had begun well, and had, as the saying 
 goes, "made his way." He was a large, heavy man, 
 representative in figure and slow and careful of 
 speech. He kept the secrets of his bank, and he 
 kept his own secrets, if he had any, and was a walk- 
 ing tomb for confidences not known as "tender." 
 No one would have attempted to tell him their affairs 
 of the heart, but almost anyone with money to invest 
 would go direct to Craven Joicey. He had no wife, 
 no child, and, as far as anyone knew, no kith or kin, 
 and he had no intimate friends. He had one of 
 those strange, shut faces ; a mouth that told nothing, 
 eyes that were nearly as expressionless as the eyes 
 of Mhtoon Pah, and he had no restless movements. 
 
 45 
 
46 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 A plethoric man, Joicey, a man who got up and sat 
 down heavily, a man who looked at his business and 
 not beyond it, and never troubled Society. He 
 probably knew that Heath lived in Mangadone, that 
 was if Heath banked with him ; otherwise, he might 
 easily not have known it. 
 
 He knew of the Wilders. He knew what Dray- 
 cott Wilder owned, and he knew that Mrs. Wilder 
 had a very small allowance of her own, paid quar- 
 terly through a Devonshire bank, but more than this 
 he neither knew nor wished to know of them, and 
 he never went to their house. 
 
 Joicey had not "worn well"; there was no deny- 
 ing that sweating years of Burmese rains and hot 
 weathers had made him prematurely old. His 
 thick hair was patched with white, and his face was 
 flabby and yellow. Craven Joicey was one of those 
 men, who, if he had died suddenly, would have made 
 people remember that they always thought him un- 
 healthy-looking. There was nothing romantic, ex- 
 citing, or interesting about him ; his mind was a huge 
 pass-book, and his brain a network of facts and 
 figures. He played no games, went only seldom to 
 the Club, and knew no one in the place better than 
 he knew Hartley, which was little, but at any rate 
 Hartley dined once or twice in the year with him, 
 and he occasionally dined in return with the Head 
 of the Police. 
 
 Hartley was so occupied with his trouble of mind 
 on the subject of Absalom that he very nearly forgot 
 that he had invited Joicey to dinner the following 
 Saturday. The police had discovered nothing what- 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY'S MEMORY 47 
 
 ever, and he had received another visit at his house 
 from the curio dealer. Mhtoon Pah, in a condition 
 bordering upon frenzy, stated that when he had 
 stood on his steps in the morning, intending to go 
 to the Pagoda to offer ahns to the priests, he had 
 noticed his wooden effigy and gone down to look 
 closer at him. The yellow man pointed as was his 
 wont, but over the pointing hand lay a rag soaked 
 in blood. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah, immense and splendid in his silk, 
 had given forth wild noises as he produced the rag, 
 noises that reminded Hartley irresistibly of the 
 trumpeting of elephants, but they were terrible to 
 hear. 
 
 "It is enough," he said, his face quivering. "This 
 is the work of the Chinamen. They slit his veins, 
 Thakin, they are doing it slowly. The Thakin can 
 understand that Absalom still lives, his blood is fresh 
 and red, it is not dead blood that runs like treacle, 
 it is living blood that spouts out hot, and that steams 
 and smokes. Thakin, Thakin, I cry for vengeance." 
 
 "I'm doing all I can, Mhtoon Pah," said Hartley, 
 desperately. "I can't go and arrest Leh Shin on 
 suspicion, because there isn't a vestige of suspicion 
 attached to the man." 
 
 "Not after this?" Mhtoon Pah pointed to the 
 rag that lay loathsomely on the table. 
 
 "That may be goat's blood, or dog's blood; we 
 can't say it is Absalom's," objected Hartley. 
 "Leave the horrid thing there, Mhtoon Pah, and I 
 will have it analysed later on." 
 
 Mhtoon Pah gasped and beat his breast. 
 
48 THE POINTING MAf>I 
 
 "He was a good boy, he attended the Mission with 
 regularity, and they are doing terrible things. They 
 wind wires around the finger-nails and the toe-nails 
 until they turn black and drop off. You do not 
 know these Chinamen, Thakin, as I know them. 
 Have you seen the assistant of Leh Shin?" 
 
 Hartley wished that he had not; he frequently 
 wished that he had never seen that man. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah bent near the Head of the Police 
 and spoke in low, sibilant tones : 
 
 "He Is a butcher's mate, Thakin. He is a slayer 
 of flesh. He kills in the shambles. Oh, it is true. 
 I saw him slit the mouth of a dog with his knife for 
 his own mirth " 
 
 "Swine !" said Hartley. 
 
 "Why he left there and went to live with Leh 
 Shin is unknown. He has secrets. He knows the 
 best mixtures of opium, he knows " 
 
 "I don't want to hear what he knows." 
 
 "He knows where Absalom Is." 
 
 "You only think that," said Hartley, roughly. 
 "It is a dangerous thing to make these assertions. 
 It is only your idea, Mhtoon Pah." 
 
 The Burman groaned aloud and held the rag be- 
 tween his hands. 
 
 "Put that down," said Hartley. Mhtoon Pah's 
 very agony of desire to find the boy was almost dis- 
 gusting, and he turned away from the sight. "There 
 Is no use your stajang here, and no use your com- 
 ing, unless there Is more of this devil's work," he 
 pointed to the blood-stained cloth. "Leave the 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY'S MEMORY 49 
 
 thing here, and I will see what the doctors have to 
 say about it." 
 
 "Thakin, Thakin," said Mhtoon Pah. "The 
 time grows late. My night's rest is taken from me, 
 and the Chinaman, Leh Shin, walks the roads. I 
 saw him from my place at sunset. I saw him go by 
 like a cat that prowls when night falls and it grows 
 dark. He passed by my wooden image of a dancing 
 
 man, and he touched him as he passed " he gave 
 
 a despairing gesture with his heavy hands. "Oh, 
 Absalom, Absalom, my grief is heavy!" 
 
 "He will be either found or accounted for," said 
 Hartley, with a decision and firmness he was far 
 from feeling, and Mhtoon Pah, with bent head, went 
 away out of the room. 
 
 The rain that had held off all day began to come 
 down in pitiless torrents, blown in by the wind, and 
 fighting against bolts and bars. It ruffled the muddy 
 waters of the river, ran along the kennels of the 
 Chinese quarter, drove the inhabitants of Paradise 
 Street indoors and soused down over the Canton- 
 ment gardens, and battered on the travelling carriage 
 of Craven Joicey, that came along the road, a water- 
 proof over the pony's back and another covering 
 the syce, and Joicey sat inside the small green box, 
 holding the window-strings under his heavy arms. 
 
 Joicey was not a cheerful companion, and in his 
 present mood Fitzgibbon, the Barrister, would have 
 suited Hartley better ; but he had asked Joicey, and 
 Joicey was on his way, thinking about Bank business 
 in all probability, thinking of money lent out at in- 
 terest, thinking of careful ledgers and neat rows of 
 
so THE POINTING MAN 
 
 figures, and certainly not In the least likely to be 
 thinking of the Chinese quarter, or of a person of 
 so small account, financially, as Absalom, the Chris- 
 tian native. The river or the ships or the back 
 lanes of Mangadone might swallow a thousand Ab- 
 saloms and make no difference to the Bank, and 
 therefore none to Craven Joicey. 
 
 Absalom, that shadow of the night, had gone to 
 heaven or hell, and left no bills behind, and it is 
 by bills that some men's memories are recorded. 
 He was only another grain of red dust blown about 
 by the wind of Fate, and though the Rector of St. 
 Jude's might consider that, having been marked by 
 the sign of the Cross, he was in some way different 
 from the rest, neither Craven Joicey nor Clarice 
 Wilder could be expected to take very much heed 
 of the fact. 
 
 All stories of disappearance, from time imme- 
 morial, have held interest, and everyone has known 
 of some case which has never been explained or ac- 
 counted for. Someone who got into a cab and 
 never appeared again, and left the impression that 
 he had driven over the edge of the world into space, 
 for the cab, the cab driver, the horse, the vehicle 
 and the passenger inside were lost from that mo- 
 ment; someone who went for a bicycle ride in Eng- 
 land, and was found later selling old clothes in 
 Chicago ; someone who went away by train, someone 
 who went away by boat; the world is full of in- 
 stances, and they are always tinged with the greatest 
 mystery of all mysteries, because they foreshadow 
 the ultimate mystery that awaits the soul of man. 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY'S MEMORY 51 
 
 For this universal reason, it might be concluded that 
 Joicey might listen with attention to the story of 
 Absalom, though his lowly station and his total lack 
 of the most necessary form of balance, very natu- 
 rally made him merely a black cypher of no special 
 account in the eyes of a man of figures. 
 
 Certainly Craven Joicey had not worn well. 
 Hartley noticed it as he stopd taking off his scarf 
 in the hall, and he noticed it again as the Banker sat 
 sipping a sherry and bitters under the strong light 
 of the electric lamp. He looked fagged and tired, 
 and though he cheered up a little as dinner went 
 through, he relapsed into a heavy, silent mood again, 
 as if he was dragged at by thoughts that had power 
 over him. 
 
 "There is nothing the matter with you, is there, 
 Joicey?" asked his host. "You don't seem to be up 
 to the mark." 
 
 "What mark?" said Joicey, with a laugh. "Up 
 to your mark. Hartley, or my own mark, or some- 
 one else's mark? The average mark in Mangadone 
 is low water. There have been a lot of defaulters 
 this year, and even admitting that the place is rich, 
 there is a good deal more insolvency about than I 
 like or than the directors care for. It keeps me 
 grinding and grinding, and wears the nerves." 
 
 "By George," said Hartley, "I should have said 
 that my own job was about the most nerve-tattering 
 of any. I had an interview with Mhtoon Pah this 
 afternoon that shook me up a bit." 
 
 "Ah, I heard that his boy has disappeared." 
 
 The door between the dining- and the drawing- 
 
52 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 room was thrown open, and dinner announced as 
 Joicey spoke, and the conversation took another 
 turn. Many things were bothering Joicey — the 
 financial year generally, a big commercial failure, 
 the outlook for the rice crop — and as the meal wore 
 on he grew more dreary, and a pessimism that is part 
 of some men's minds tinged everything he touched. 
 
 "Did Rydal's disappearance affect you at all, per- 
 sonally?" Hartley asked, with some show of interest. 
 
 "Not personally, but it cost the Bank close upon 
 a quarter of a lakh." Joicey drummed his square- 
 topped fingers on the table. "I can't imagine how 
 he managed to get away." 
 
 Hartley frowned. 
 
 "I had all the landing-stages carefully watched, 
 and the plague police warned. He must have gone 
 before the warrant was out, that is, if he has ever 
 left the country at all." 
 
 Joicey shrugged his heavy shoulders. 
 
 "In any case, the man's not much use to us, and 
 the money has gone. I'm not altogether sorry he 
 got away." His eyes grew full of brooding shadows 
 and he sat silent, still tapping the cloth with his 
 fingers. 
 
 "It's an odd coincidence," said Hartley, and his 
 face grew keen again. "Mhtoon Pah's boy, Absa- 
 lom, disappeared that same night. I wish you could 
 tell me, Joicey, if you saw Heath that evening when 
 you went down Paradise Street. It was the same 
 evening that the Bank laid their information against 
 Rydal, the twenty-ninth." 
 
 Joicey had just poured himself out a glass of 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY'S MEMORY 53 
 
 port, and was raising it to his lips as Hartley spoke, 
 and the hand that held the glass jerked slightly, 
 splashing a little of the wine on to the front of his 
 white shirt. Joicey did not set the glass back on to 
 the table, he held it between him and the light, and 
 eyed it, or, rather, it should be said that he watched 
 his own hand, and when he saw that it was quite 
 steady he set down the wine untasted. 
 
 "Paradise Street? I never go down there. I 
 wasn't in Mangadone that night," his face was dead 
 white with a sick, leprous whiteness. "If Heath 
 said he saw me. Heath was wrong." 
 
 "Heath didn't say so," said Hartley. "It was the 
 policeman on duty at the corner who said that he 
 had seen you." 
 
 "I tell you I wasn't in the place," said Joicey 
 again. 
 
 Hartley coughed awkwardly. 
 
 "Well, if you weren't there, you weren't there," 
 he said, pacifically. 
 
 "And Heath, what did Heath say?" 
 
 "I told you he said nothing, except that he had 
 seen Absalom. I can't understand this business, 
 Joicey; directly I ask the smallest question about that 
 infernal night of July the twenty-ninth I am always 
 met in just the same way." 
 
 "I know nothing about it," said Joicey, shortly. 
 "I wasn't here and I don't know what Heath was 
 doing, so there's no use asking me questions about 
 him." 
 
 The Banker relapsed into his former dull apathy, 
 and leaned back in his chair. 
 
54 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "I've had insomnia lately," he said, after a per- 
 ceptible pause. "It plays the deuce with one's 
 nerves. I believe I need a change. This cursed 
 country gets into one's bones if one stays out too 
 long. I've forgotten what England looks like and 
 I've got over the desire to go back there, and so I 
 rot through the rains and the steam and the tepid 
 cold weather, and it isn't doing me any good at all." 
 
 They walked into the drawing-room, Hartley with 
 his hand on Joicey's shoulder. The Banker sat for 
 a little time making a visible effort to talk easily, but 
 long before his usual hour for leaving he pulled out 
 his watch and looked at it. 
 
 "It may seem rude to clear off so soon, but I'm 
 tired. Hartley, and shall be much obliged if I may 
 shout for my carriage." 
 
 He looked tired enough to make any excuse of 
 exhaustion or ill-health quite a valid one, and Hart- 
 ley was concerned for his friend. 
 
 "Don't overdo it, Joicey," he said. 
 
 "Overdo what?" 
 
 Joicey got up with the heavy lift of an old, weary 
 man, and yet there was not two years between him 
 and Hartley. 
 
 "The insomnia," said Hartley. 
 
 "Good night," replied Joicey shortly, and closed 
 the carriage-door behind him. 
 
 He drove along the dark roads, his arms in the 
 window-straps and his head bent forward. The 
 head of the Mangadone Banking Firm was suffering, 
 if not from insomnia, from something that was 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY'S MEMORY 55 
 
 heavier than the heaviest night of sleeplessness, and 
 something that was darker than the dark road, and 
 something that was deep as the brown waters that 
 carried outgoing craft to sea. 
 
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 
 
 SOCIAL life went its way in Mangadone much 
 as it had before the 29th of July, but Hartley 
 was not allowed to rest and feel comfortable and 
 easy for very long. Mhtoon Pah waylaid him in 
 the dark when he was riding home from the Club, 
 arid waited for him for hours in his bungalow. Like 
 his own shadow, Mhtoon Pah followed him and 
 dogged his comings and goings, always with the same 
 imploring tale, but never with any further evidence. 
 Leh Shin was officially watched, and Leh Shin's as- 
 sistant was also under the paternal eye of authority, 
 but all that authority could discover about him was 
 that he led a gay life, gambled and drugged himself, 
 hung about evil houses, and had been seen loitering 
 in the vicinity of the curio shop; but, as Paradise 
 Street was an open thoroughfare, he had as much 
 right to be there as any leprous beggar. 
 
 Hartley's peace of mind was soon shattered again, 
 this time by a new element that Hartley had not 
 thought of, and so he was caught in another net 
 without any previous warning, 
 
 56 
 
ATKINS EXPLAINS FACTS 57 
 
 Atkins, the rector of St. Jude's bungalow compan- 
 ion, was a dry little man, adhering to simple facts, 
 and neither a sensationalist nor an alarmist; there- 
 fore his words had weight. He was a small man, 
 always dressed in clothes a little too small, with 
 his whole mind given up to the subject of his pro- 
 fession; besides which he was religious, a non- 
 smoker, a teetotaller, and particular upon these 
 points. 
 
 Being but little in the habit of going into Manga- 
 done society, he seldom met Hartley except at the 
 Club, and It was there that he ran him into a corner 
 and asked for a word or two in private. Hartley 
 took him out into the dim green space where basket 
 chairs were set at intervals, and drawing two well 
 away from the others, sat down to listen. 
 
 Sweet scents were wafted up on the evening air, 
 and drowsy, dark clouds followed the moonlike 
 heavy wisps of black cotton-wool, drowning the light 
 from time to time and then clearing off again; and 
 all over the grass, glimmering groups of men in 
 white clothes and women in trailing skirts filled the 
 air with an indistinct murmur of sound. 
 
 "It is understood at the outset," began Atkins, 
 clearing his throat with a crowing sound, "that what 
 I have to say is said strictly in a private and confi- 
 dential sense. I only say it because I am driven 
 to do so." 
 
 Hartley's basket chair squeaked as he moved, but 
 he said nothing, and Atkins dropped his voice into 
 an intimate tone and went on: 
 
 "You came to see Heath one day lately, and I told 
 
58 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 you he was ill. Well, so he was, but there are 
 Illnesses of the mind as well as of the body, and 
 Heath was mind-sick. I am a light sleeper, Hartley. 
 I wake at a sound, and twice lately I have been 
 awakened by sounds." 
 
 "The Durwan,'\ suggested Hartley. 
 
 "Not the Durwan. If it had been, I would not 
 have spoken to you about it. Heath has been visited 
 towards morning by a man, and it was the sound of 
 voices that awoke me. It is no business of mine to 
 pry or to talk, and I would say nothing If it were 
 not that I admire and respect Heath, and I believe 
 that he is in some horrible difficulty, out of which 
 he either will not, or cannot, extricate himself." 
 
 "Who was the man?" 
 
 Atkins ignored the question. 
 
 "I admit that I listened, but I overheard almost 
 nothing, except just the confused sounds of talking 
 in low voices, but I heard Heath say, 'I will not 
 endure it, I am bearing too much already.' I think 
 he spoke more to himself than to the man in his 
 room, but it was a ghastly thing to hear, as he 
 said it." 
 
 "Go on," said Hartfey. '*Tell me exactly what 
 happened." 
 
 "I heard the door on to the back veranda open, 
 and I heard the sound of feet go along it — bare 
 feet, mind you, Hartley — and then I went to sleep. 
 That was r week ago." 
 
 "And something of the same nature has occurred 
 since?" 
 
 Atkins dried his hands with his handkerchief. 
 
ATKINS EXPLAINS FACTS 59 
 
 "I said something to Heath at breakfast about 
 having had a bad night, and he got up at once and 
 left the table. After that nothing happened until 
 last night. I had been out all day, and came home 
 dog-tired. I turned in early and left Heath reading 
 a theological book in the veranda. I said, I re- 
 member, 'I'm absolutely beat, Padre; I have had 
 enough to-day to give me nine or ten hours without 
 stirring,' and he looked up and said, 'Don't com- 
 plain of that, Atkins; there are worse things than 
 sound sleep.' It struck me then that he hadn't 
 known what it was for weeks, he looked so gaunt 
 and thin, and I thought again of that other night 
 that we had neither of us spoken about." 
 
 "Heath never explained anything?" 
 
 "No, I never asked him to." 
 
 "What happened then?" Hartley's voice was 
 hardly above a whisper, and he leaned close to At- 
 kins to listen. 
 
 "I slept for hours, fairly hogged it until it must 
 have been two or three in the morning, judging by 
 the light, and then I awoke suddenly, the way one 
 wakes when there is some noise that is different to 
 usual noises, and after a moment or two I heard the 
 sound of voices, and I got out of bed and went very 
 quietly into the veranda. Heath's lamp was burn- 
 ing, his room is at the far end from mine, and I 
 stood there, shivering like a leaf out of sheer jumps. 
 I had a regular 'night attack' feeling over me. I 
 heard a chair pushed back, and I heard Heath say 
 in a low voice 'If you come here again, or if you 
 dog me again, I'll hand you over to the police,' and 
 
6o THE POINTING MAN 
 
 the man laughed. I can't describe his laugh ; it was 
 the most damnable thing I ever listened to, and I 
 thought of running in, but something stopped me, 
 God knows why. 'Take your pay,' said Heath; I 
 heard him say it, and then I heard the door open 
 again, and the same sound of feet." He shivered. 
 "They stopped outside my room, and I caught the 
 outline of a head, a huge head and enormous, heavy 
 shoulders, and then he was gone." 
 
 "Why the devil didn't you raise the alarm?" 
 Hartley's voice was angry. "You've got a police- 
 man on the road. Why didn't you shout?" 
 
 "Because I was thinking of Heath," said Atkins 
 a little stiffly. "He is the man we have both got 
 to think about. Some devil of a native is black- 
 mailing him, and Heath is one of the best and 
 straightest men I know. Not one item of all this 
 mystery goes against him in my mind, but what I 
 want you to do, is to have the bungalow watched." 
 
 "I shall certainly do that," said Hartley with de- 
 cision. "And as for your opinion of Heath — well, 
 it strikes me as curious that a man of good charac- 
 ter should be a mark for blackmail." 
 
 "I explain facts by people, not people by facts," 
 said Atkins hotly. "And I have told you " 
 
 "I think it is only fair to say that you have told 
 me something that lays Heath under suspicion," said 
 Hartley, slowly. "He behaved very oddly, lately, 
 when I asked him a simple question, and he chose 
 to refuse to see me when I went to his house. All 
 that was a small matter, but what you tell me now 
 is serious." 
 
ATKINS EXPLAINS FACTS 6i 
 
 "Serious for Heath, and for that very reason 
 I particularly want him protected. But as for sus- 
 picion, I know the man thoroughly, and that is quite 
 absurd." Atkins got up and terminated the inter- 
 view. "It is absurd to talk of suspicion," he said 
 again, irritably. "I hope you will drop that atti- 
 tude, Hartley. If I had imagined for a moment 
 that you were likely to adopt it, I should have kept 
 my mouth shut." 
 
 He went away, his narrow shoulders humped, and 
 his whole figure testifying to his annoyance, and 
 Hartley sat alone, watching the moonlight and 
 thinking his own thoughts. He was interrupted by 
 a woman's voice, and Mrs. Wilder sat down in the 
 chair left vacant by Atkins. 
 
 "What are you pondering about, Mr. Hartley? 
 Are you seeing ghosts or moon spirits? You cer- 
 tainly give the idea that you are immensely preoc- 
 cupied." 
 
 "Do I?" Hartley laughed awkwardly. "Well, 
 as a matter of fact, I was not thinking of anything 
 very pleasant." 
 
 "Can I help?" — her voice was very soft and al- 
 luring. 
 
 "No one can, I am afraid." 
 
 She touched his arm with a little intimate ges- 
 ture, and her eyes shone in the moonlight. 
 
 "How can you say that? If I were in any sort 
 of fix, or in any sort of trouble, I would ask you to 
 advise me, and to tell me what to do, before I would 
 go to anyone else, even Draycott, and why should 
 you leave me outside your worries ?" 
 
62 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "You see, that's just it, they aren't exactly mine. 
 If they were I would tell you, but I can't tell you, 
 because what I was thinking about was connected 
 entirely with someone else." 
 
 Mrs. Wilder's eyes narrowed, and she lifted her 
 slightly pointed nose a very little. 
 
 "Ah, now you make me inquisitive, and that is 
 most unfair of you. Don't tell me anything, Mr. 
 Hartley, except just the name of the person con- 
 cerned. I'm very safe, as you know. Could you 
 tell me the name, or would it be wrong of you?" 
 
 "The name won't convey very much to you," said 
 Hartley, laughing. "I was thinking of the Padre, 
 Heath. That doesn't give you much clue, does it?" 
 
 It was too dark for him to see a look that sprang 
 into Mrs. Wilder's eyes, or perhaps Hartley might 
 have found a considerable disparity between her 
 look and her light words. 
 
 "Poor Mr. Heath, he is one of those terribly se- 
 rious, conscientious people, who go about life mak- 
 ing themselves wretched for the good of their souls. 
 He ought to have lived in the Middle Ages. I 
 won't ask you why you are thinking about him" — 
 she got up and lingered a little, and Hartley rose 
 also — "but you l^ow that you should not think of 
 anyone unless you want to makfe others think of 
 them, too ; it isn't at all safe. I shall have to think 
 of Mr. Heath all the way home, and he is such a 
 gaunt, scraggy kind of thought." 
 
 "I wish I could replace him with myself," said 
 Hartley, in a burst of admiration. 
 
 Mrs. Wilder accepted his compliment gradously 
 
ATKINS EXPLAINS FACTS 63 
 
 and walked across the grass to the drive, where her 
 car panted almost noiselessly, as is the way of good 
 cars, and he put her in with the manner of a jeweller 
 putting a precious diamond pendant into a case. He 
 watched the car disappear, and considered that some 
 men are undeservedly lucky in this life. 
 
 Hartley was nearly forty, that dangerously sen- 
 timental age, and he began to wonder if, by chance, 
 he had met Clarice Wilder years ago in a Devon- 
 shire orchard, life might not have been a wonder- 
 ful thing. He called her a "sweet woman" in his 
 mind, and it was almost a pity that Mrs. Wilder 
 did not know, because her sense of humour was 
 subtle and acute, and she would have thoroughly 
 enjoyed the description of herself. She could read 
 Hartley as quickly as she could read the telegrams 
 in the Man^adone Times, and she could play upon 
 him as she played upon her own grand piano. 
 
 She had not asked any questions, and she knew 
 nothing of what Atkins had said about Heath; but 
 her face was set and tense as she drove towards her 
 bungalow. She was certainly thinking very defi- 
 nitely, quite as definitely as Hartley had been think- 
 ing as he watched the moonlight playing hide-and- 
 seek with the shadows of the palm branches and 
 the darkness of the trees, and her thoughts left no 
 pleasant look upon her face or in her eyes ; and yet 
 Hartley, on his way to the bungalow where he lived, 
 was thinking of her in a white dress and a shady hat, 
 with a fleecy blue and white sky overhead and the 
 scent of apple-blossom in the air. 
 
 The power of romance is strong in adolescence, 
 
64 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 but it is stronger still when the turnrtile of years is 
 reached and there is finality in the air. Hartley 
 was built for platonics ; Fate gave him the necessary 
 touch of the commonplace that dispels romance and 
 replaces it with a kind of deadly domesticity; and 
 yet Hartley was unaware of the fact. 
 
 He had never thought of being "in love" with 
 Mrs. Wilder, partly because he felt it would be "no 
 use," and partly because she had never seemed to 
 expect it from him, but as he walked along the road 
 he began to find that her manner had of late altered 
 considerably. She seemed to take an interest in 
 him, and though she had always been his friend, her 
 new attitude was charged with invisible electricity. 
 
 So far as Mrs. Wilder was concerned, Hartley 
 was to her what a sitting hen would be to a sport- 
 ing man. You couldn't shoot the confiding thing; 
 but you might wring its neck if necessary, or push it 
 out of the way with an impatient foot. She knew 
 her power over him to a nicety, and she knew of his 
 secret desire for "situations," because her instinct 
 was never at fault; but she felt nothing more than 
 contempt, slightly charged with pity towards him. 
 Hartley was a good-natured, idiotic man, and Hart- 
 ley had principles; Clarice Wilder had none her- 
 self, though she felt that they were definite factors 
 in any game, but she also believed that principles 
 were things that could be got over, or got at, by any 
 woman who knew enough about life to manage such 
 as Hartley. 
 
 All the same, it was not of Hartley that she 
 thought. She had been quite truthful when she 
 
ATKINS EXPLAINS FACTS 65 
 
 said that he had suggested Heath to her mind, and 
 that she would have to consider his gaunt face and 
 hollow cheeks during her drive. 
 
 If he had sat on the vacant seat beside her, the 
 Rev. Francis Heath could hardly have been more 
 clearly before her eyes, and could hardly have drawn 
 her mind more strongly, and it was because of her 
 thought of him that she preserved her steady look 
 and strange eyes. 
 
 A strong woman, a woman with character, a 
 woman who once she saw her way, was able to fol- 
 low it faithfully, wherever it twisted, wherever it 
 wound, and wherever it eventually brought her. No 
 one could picture her flinching or turning back along 
 a road she had set out to follow; if it had run in 
 blood, she would have gone on in bare feet, not 
 picking her steps, and yet Hartley dreamed of apple 
 orchards and an Eve in a yfhite muslin dress. 
 
VII 
 
 finds the rev. francis heath reading george 
 Herbert's poems, and leaves him pledged to 
 A possibly compromising silence 
 
 THE Reverend Francis Heath was sitting in his 
 upstairs room, for of late he had avoided the 
 veranda. It was the leisure hour of the day, the 
 slow hour when the light wanes and it is too early to 
 call for a lamp ; the hour when memory or fear can 
 both be poignant in tropical climates. 
 
 The house was very still, Atkins had gone to the 
 Club and the servants had all returned to their own 
 quarters. Outside, noises were many. Birds, with 
 ugly, tuneless notes that were not songs but cries, 
 flitted in the trees, and the rumble of traffic on the 
 road came up in the evening air, broken occasionally 
 by the shrill persistence of an exhaust whistle or the 
 clamour of a motor-horn, and above all other sounds 
 the long-drawn, occasional hoot from a ship an- 
 chored in the river highway. There was noise, and 
 to spare, outside, but within everything was still, 
 except for the chittering of a nest of bats in the 
 eaves, and the sudden, relaxing creak of bamboo 
 chairs, that behave sometimes as though ghosts sat 
 restlessly in their arms. 
 
 The sunlight that fell into the garden and caught 
 
 66 
 
THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH 67 
 
 its green, turning it into flaming emerald, climbed 
 in at Mr. Heath's window, and lay across his writ- 
 ing-table; it touched his shoulder and withdrew a 
 little, touched the lines on his forehead for a mo- 
 ment, touched the open book before him, and fell 
 away, followed by a shadow that grew deeper as it 
 passed. It faded out of the garden like a memory 
 that cannot be held back by human striving. The 
 distances turned into shadowy blue, and from blue 
 to purple, until only a few flecks of golden light 
 across the pearl-silver told that it was gone eter- 
 nally; that its hour was spent, for good or ill, and 
 that Mangadone had come one evening nearer to 
 the end of measureless Time; but the Rev. Francis 
 Heath did not regard its going. His face was sad 
 with a terrible, tragic sadness that is the sadness 
 of life and not death, and yet it was of death and 
 not of life that he thought. A little book of George 
 Herbert's poems lay open before him and he had 
 been reading it with a scholar's love of quaint 
 phraseology : 
 
 "I made a posy, while the days ran by; 
 Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie 
 
 My life within this band. 
 But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they, 
 By noon, most cunningly did steal away, 
 
 And wither'd in my hand." 
 
 He read the lines over and over again, and gave 
 a deep, heart-broken sigh, bending his face between 
 his hands, and bowing his shoulders as though un- 
 der a heavy weight. His gaunt frame was thin 
 and spare, his black alpaca coat hung on it like a 
 
68 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 sack, and his whole attitude spoke of sorrow. He 
 might have been the presentment of an unwilling 
 ghpst, who stood with the Ferryman's farthing un- 
 der his palm, waiting to be taken across the cheer- 
 less, dark waters to a limbo of drifting souls. He 
 took his hands from before his face and clasped them 
 over the book, looking out of the window to the 
 evening shadows, as if he tried to find peace in the 
 very act of contemplation. 
 
 The sad things he came in daily contact with had 
 conquered his faith in life, though they had not suc- 
 ceeded in killing his trust in God's eventual plan 
 of redemption; and his mind wandered in terrible 
 places, places he had forced his way into, places he 
 could never forget. He suffered from all a reform- 
 er's agony, an agony that is the small reflection of 
 the great story of the mystic burden heavy as the sins 
 of the whole world, and he tried, out of the sim- 
 ple, childlike fancy of the words he read, to grasp 
 at a better mind. 
 
 Heath was one of those men who could not under- 
 stand effortless faith; he was crushed by his own 
 lack of success, and bowed down by his own failure. 
 Since he could not rout the enemy single-handed, he 
 believed that the battle was against the Hosts of the 
 Lord. He knew no leisure from the war of his 
 own thoughts, and as he clasped his hands, his face 
 grew tense and set, and his eyes haggard and ter- 
 rible. For a moment he sat very still, and his eyes 
 followed the lines written by a man who had the 
 faith of a little child : 
 
THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH 69 
 
 "But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they, 
 By noon, most cunningly did steal away." 
 
 Heath had never gathered flowers, either as a 
 lesson to himself or a gift for others; they hardly 
 spoke of careless beauty to him, they were emblems 
 of lightness and thoughtlessness, and Heath had no 
 time to stop and consider the lilies of the field. 
 
 He moved suddenly like a man who is awakened 
 from a thought heavier than sleep, and listened with 
 a hunted look, the look of a man who is afraid of 
 footsteps; he stood up, gathering his loose limbs 
 together and watching the door. Steps came up 
 the staircase, steps that stumbled a little, and if 
 Heath had possessed Mhtoon Pah's art of reading 
 the walk of his fellow creatures, he would have 
 known that he might expect a woman and not a 
 man. 
 
 "Mr. Heath," a low voice called in the passage, 
 and Heath's tension relaxed, giving place to sur- 
 prise. 
 
 The voice was strange to him, and he passed his 
 handkerchief over his face and walked to the door, 
 just as his name was called again, in the same low, 
 penetrating voice. 
 
 "Who wants me?" he asked, almost roughly, and 
 then he saw a tall, dark woman standing at the top 
 of the staircase. 
 
 "Mrs. Wilder," he said in surprise, and she made 
 a little imperious movement with her hand. 
 
 "I did not call your servant, I came up, because 
 I wanted to find you alone. You are alone?" 
 
 "Certainly, I am alone." 
 
70 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "May I come in?" 
 
 Heath held the door open for her to pass, and 
 she walked in, looking around the darkening room 
 with hard, curious eyes. 
 
 She took the chair he gave her, in silence, and 
 sat down near the writing-table, and, feeling that 
 she would speak after a time, Heath took his own 
 place again and waited. 
 
 "I hardly know where to begin," she said, always 
 speaking in the same low, intent voice. "Do you 
 recall the evening of the twenty-ninth?" 
 
 An odd spasm caught Heath's face, and he 
 paused for a moment before he answered. 
 
 "I do recall it." 
 
 "Perhaps you remember seeing me? I was rid- 
 ing along the road when I first passed you, and you 
 were walking." 
 
 "I remember that I did pass you then, and also 
 that I saw you later." 
 
 Heath's sombre eyes were on her face, and his 
 fingers touched a gold cross that hung from his 
 watch-chain. 
 
 "You passed me, and you passed Absalom, the 
 Christian boy, and you have been questioned about 
 Absalom." 
 
 "I have," he said heavily. "Why do you ask?" 
 
 Mrs. Wilder took a quick breath. 
 
 "Because I am afraid that you may be asked 
 again. You understand, Mr. Heath, that I know 
 it was the merest chance that brought you there that 
 evening, but, as you were there, and as Mr. Hart- 
 ley has got it into his head that you know something 
 
THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH Ji 
 
 more than you have told him, I beg of you to bear 
 in mind that if you mention my name you may get 
 me into serious trouble. You would not do that 
 willingly, I think?" 
 
 "I certainly would not. What motive took you 
 there is a question for your own conscience. It is 
 not for me to press that question, Mrs. Wilder." 
 
 she pressed her lips together tightly. 
 
 "I went there to see an old friend who was in 
 great trouble." 
 
 "And yet you have to keep it secret?" 
 
 "Haven't we all our secrets, Mr. Heath?" Her 
 voice was raised a little. "Will you pledge me 
 your solemn word to keep this knowledge from any- 
 one who asks?" She put her elbows on the table 
 and drew closer to him. 
 
 "I will respect your confidence," he said slowly. 
 "But is it likely that Hartley will ask me?" 
 
 Mrs. Wilder made a gesture of denial. 
 
 "I think not, but who can tell? This thing has 
 been like lead on my mind and will not let me rest. 
 Oh, Mr. Heath, if you knew what I have already 
 paid, you would be sorry for me." 
 
 "I am sorry," he said gently. "More sorry for 
 you than you can tell. You, too, saw Absalom, and 
 spoke to him?" 
 
 "He has nothing to do with what I came here 
 about," — ^her tone grew impatient. "I only wanted 
 to make sure that I was safe with you. It was no 
 little thing that drove me to come. I am a proud 
 woman, Mr. Heath, and I do not usually ask fa- 
 vours, yet I ask you now " 
 
72 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "Not a favour," he said, taking her up quickly. 
 "God knows I have every reason to help you if I 
 can. Does Hartley suspect you? Does he ques- 
 tion you ? Does he try to wring admissions out of 
 you?" 
 
 In the darkness Heath's voice rang hard andi 
 metallic, like the voice of a man whose thoughts 
 return upon something that maddens him. 
 
 "He has not done so, but he has asked me ques- 
 tions that made me frightened. It is a terrible 
 thing to be afraid." 
 
 "And Joicey?" said Heath in a quiet voice. "I 
 saw Joicey, but he did not stop to speak to me. Has 
 he, too, been Interrogated?" 
 
 "So far as I know, he has not. But this ques- 
 tion presses only on me. What took you there is, I 
 feel sure, easily accounted for, and what took Mr. 
 Joicey there is not likely to be a matter of the small- 
 est importance; it Is / who suffer, it Is on me that 
 all this weight lies. If the police begin investiga- 
 tions they come close upon the fact that I went there 
 to meet a man whom my husband has forbidden me 
 to meet. Any little turn of evidence that involves 
 me, any little accident that obliges me to admit it, 
 and I am lost," — her voice thrilled and pleaded. 
 
 "It Is you who are lost," he echoed dully. "I 
 can understand how ydu feel. If I can ease your 
 burden or lessen the anxiety you suffer from, you 
 may depend upon me, Mrs. Wilder. This matter 
 Is a dark road where I, too, walk blind, not knowing 
 the path I follow, but, at least, I can ^ve you my 
 word that imder no circumstances shall I be led to 
 
THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH 73 
 
 mention your name. You can be sure of that, Mrs. 
 Wilder. If I can add your trouble to my own bur- 
 den I shall not feel its weight, but I would counsel 
 you to be honest with your husband. Tell him the 
 truth." 
 
 "I wiU," said Mrs. Wilder, with an acquiescence 
 that came too quickly. "I assure you that I will, 
 but even when I do, you see what a position the least 
 publicity places me in?" , 
 
 Heath got up and paced the floor with long, rest- 
 less strides. 
 
 "Publicity. The open avowal of a hidden thing; 
 the knowledge that the whole world judges and 
 condemns, and does not understand." 
 
 "That is what I feel." 
 
 After all, he was more human than she had ex- 
 pected. Clarice Wilder had looked upon the Rev. 
 Francis as a hermit, an ascetic, whose comprehen- 
 sion was limited; and her eyes grew keen as she 
 watched his gaunt figure. 
 
 "To be dragged down, to be accused, to be cast 
 so low," he continued, in his sad, heavy voice, "so 
 low that the lowest have cause to deride and to 
 scorn." He stopped before her. "Is it true that I 
 can save you from that?" 
 
 "It is true." 
 
 She did not tell him that she had lied to Dray- 
 cott; it did not appear necessary; neither did she 
 tell him that Draycott's memory was long and sure 
 and unerring. 
 
 "Then, if there is one man in all God's universe," 
 — Heath cast out his arms as he spoke — "one man 
 
74 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 above all others whom you could appeal to, could 
 trust most entirely, that man Is myself. Give me 
 your burden, your distress of mind, and I will take 
 them ; I cannot say more- -" 
 
 "Of course, it may never be necessary for you to 
 — ^to avoid telling Mr. Hartley," broke in Mrs. Wil- 
 der quickly. Heath was getting on her nerves, 
 and she rose to her feet. "I cannot thank you 
 sufficiently, and I fear that I have upset you, made 
 you feel my own cares too profoundly," — her voice 
 grew almost tender. "I have never known such 
 ready sympathy, but you feel too intensely, Mr. 
 Heath. You make my little trouble your own, and 
 you have made me very grateful. Are you in any 
 trouble yourself?" 
 
 Heath stopped for a moment, an outline against 
 the light of the window. She thought he was go- 
 ing to speak, and she waited with an odd feeling of 
 excitement to hear what was coming, when he sud- 
 denly retired back into his usual manner. 
 
 A light was travelling up the staircase, casting 
 great shadows before It, and when the boy came to 
 the door of the Padre Sahib's room, he saw his mas- 
 ter saying good-bye to a tall, dark lady who smiled 
 at him and gave him her hand. 
 
 "Good night, Mr. Heath, I hardly know how to 
 thank you sufficiently." 
 
 She hurried down the staircase, and as she walked 
 out, she met Atkins coming in on his bicycle. He 
 jumped off as he saw her, and spoke in surprise. 
 
 "I have just been calling on the Padre," replied 
 Mrs. Wilder pleasantly, as he commented with 
 
THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH 75 
 
 ever-ready tacdessness upon her presence in the Com- 
 pound. "One of my servants is ill; a member of 
 his community. By the way, do you think that Mr. 
 Heath is quite well himself?" 
 
 "Indeed I do not think so. He overworks. I 
 have a great admiration for Heath." 
 
 "He must be rather depressing in the rains," she 
 said, with a careless laugh. "He positively gave 
 me the shivers. I can hardly envy you boxed up 
 there with him. I believe he sees ghosts, and I think 
 they must be horrid ghosts or he couldn't look as he 
 does." 
 
 Her car was waiting down the road, and Atkins 
 walked beside her and saw her get in. Mrs. Wilder 
 was very charming to him; she leaned out and smiled 
 at him again, 
 
 "Do take care of the Padre," she called as she 
 drove off. 
 
 "There goes a sensible, good-looking woman," 
 thought Atkins, and he thought highly of Mrs. 
 Wilder for her visit to Heath. He said so to the 
 Rector of St. Jude's as they dined together, remark- 
 ing on the fact that very few women bothered about 
 sick servants, and he was surprised at the cold lack 
 of enthusiasm with which Heath accepted his re- 
 mark. 
 
 "That was what she said?" 
 
 "Yes, and I call it unusual in a country where 
 servants are treated like machines. I've never 
 known Mrs. Wilder very well, but she is an inter- 
 esting woman; don't you think so. Heath?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Heath absently. "I never 
 
76 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 form definite opinions about people on a slight 
 knowledge of them." 
 
 Atkins felt snubbed, but he only laughed good- 
 naturedly, and Heath relapsed into silence. 
 
 Mrs. Wilder was dming out that night, and she 
 looked so superbly handsome and so defiantly well 
 that everyone remarked upon her; and even Dray- 
 cott Wilder, who might have been supposed to be 
 used to her beauty and her wit, watched her with 
 his slow, following look. Hartley was not at the 
 dinner-party, but afterwards echoes of its success 
 reached him, and a description of Mrs. Wilder her- 
 self that thrilled his romantic sense as he listened. 
 
 Hartley was worried about the Padre, and he 
 had warned the policeman to watch the Compound 
 at night; but all the watching in the world did not 
 explain the cause of these visits. There was a con- 
 nection somewhere and somehow between Heath and 
 the missing Absalom, and Hartley wondered if he 
 could venture to speak to Mrs. Wilder again about 
 the night of the 29th of July, and implore her to let 
 him know if she had seen Heath with Absalom. 
 
 It seemed, judging by what Atkins had heard, 
 that Heath was paying for silence, and Hartley dis- 
 liked the idea of working up evidence against the 
 Padre. The more he thought of it the less he liked 
 it, and yet his duty and his sense of responsibility 
 would not let him rest. Mrs. Wilder had said that 
 she had seen Heath and Absalom, and had then re- 
 fused to say anything more, but Hartley saw in her 
 reserve a suggestion of further knowledge that could 
 not be ignored or denied. 
 
THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH 77 
 
 Mhtoon Pah was quieter for the moment. He 
 believed that Leh Shin was being cautiously tracked, 
 and the pointing image had held no further traces 
 of bloodshed upon his yellow hands. Hartley had 
 grown to loathe the grinning figure, and to loathe 
 the whole tedious, difficult tragedy of the lost boy. 
 If it had lain in the native quarter he could have 
 found interest in the excitement of the chase, but if 
 it ramified into the Cantonment, Hartley had no 
 mind for it. He was a man first, a sociable, kindly 
 man, and, later, an officer of the law. 
 
viir 
 
 SHOWS HOW THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS OF ONE NIGHT 
 HIDES MANY EMOTIONS, AND MRS. WILDER IS 
 FRANKLY INQUISITIVE 
 
 DARKNESS brooded everywhere, but the 
 gloom of night is a darkness that is impene- 
 trable only to our eyes because we creatures of the 
 hard glare of daylight cannot see in the strange 
 clearness that brings out the stars. Only in the 
 houses of men real darkness has its habitation. Un- 
 der close roofs, confined within walls, shut into 
 rooms, and lurking in corners : there, darkness may 
 be found, and because man made it, it has its own 
 special terror, as have all the creatures of man's 
 hand. Dark, menacing and noiseless, the shadows 
 flock in as daylight wanes, filing up like heavy 
 thoughts and sad thoughts, and casting a gloom with 
 their coming that is not the blackness of earth's rest- 
 ful night. 
 
 Mrs. Wilder paced her room with the steps of 
 a woman whose heart drives sleep out with scorpion- 
 whips of memory; and she went softly, for sound 
 travels far at night, and Draycott Wilder, in the next 
 room, was a light sleeper. She was thinking stead- 
 ily, and she was trying to force her will across the 
 
 78 
 
THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS 79 
 
 distance into the stronghold of Hartley's inner con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Night brought no more rest to Mrs. Draycott 
 Wilder than it did to Craven Joicey, the Banker, 
 but Joicey did not sit in the dark. Madness lies in 
 the dark for some minds, and he had turned on the 
 electric light, that showed his face yellow and weary. 
 On the wall the lizards, awakened by the sudden 
 glare, resumed their fly-catching, and scuttled with 
 a dry, scurrying sound over the walls, breaking the 
 silence with a perpetual "chuck-chuck" as they 
 chased each other. Joicey looked as though he was 
 dreaming evil dreams, and nothing of his surround- 
 ings was real to him. The room became another 
 room, the tables and chairs grew indistinct, the face 
 of a small Gaudama on the mantel-piece became a 
 living face that menaced him, and the "chuck- 
 chuck" of the lizards, the rattle of dice falling on 
 to a board at some remote distance miles and miles 
 away, and yet strangely audible to his dull ears. 
 Still he sat there, and flashes of fancies came and 
 went. Sometimes he stood in an English garden, 
 with a far-away sunlit glimpse of glittering waters, 
 and a cuckoo crying in a wood of waving trees, and 
 then he knew that he was a boy, and that he had 
 forgotten everything that had happened since; and 
 then, without warning, he was swept out of the gar- 
 den and stood under Eastern trees, lost in a wild 
 place, with the haunting face of the Image at his 
 shoulder. The face altered. Sometimes it was 
 Mhtoon Pah's pointing man, and what he pointed 
 
8o THE POINTING MAN 
 
 at was never clear. The mistiness bothered him 
 horribly. 
 
 The Durwan outside played on a wistful little 
 flute, thinking that his master was asleep; he heard 
 it, and it did not concern him; he was dead to all 
 outward things just then, and the flute only added 
 to the mystery of the dreim that spun itself in his 
 brain. He wandered in a place so near actual things 
 and yet so far from them, that the gigantic mistake 
 of it all, and the consciousness that the inner life 
 could at times conquer the outer life, made him fall 
 away between the two conditions, lost and helpless. 
 His head nodded forward, and his lower lip 
 dropped, and yet his eyes were open, as he sat fadng 
 the small squatting Buddha, whose changeless face 
 changed only for him. 
 
 The three little flute-notes tripped out after each 
 other with no semblance at a tune, repeating and re- 
 iterating the sound in the dark outside, and Joicey 
 listened as though something of weight depended 
 upon his hearing steadily. The sound was the one 
 thing that made him know that he was real, and 
 once it ceased, or he ceased to hear it, he would be 
 across the gulf and terribly lost; a mind without a 
 body, let loose in a world where there were no 
 landmarks, no known roads, nothing but windy 
 space, and he was afraid of that place, and feared 
 terribly to go there. 
 
 Something shuffled on the stone veranda, another 
 sound, and sound was of value to Craven Joicey, 
 since it made a vital note in the circling numbness 
 around him. He could hear whispering voices, and 
 
THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS 8i 
 
 the thump of the Durwan's stick, as that musically- 
 minded man walked round to the back of the house, 
 where his lighted window showed that Craven 
 Joicey did not sleep. Again a voice whispered, and 
 a low sound of discreet knocking followed. 
 Joicey sprang up and called out hoarsely: 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 "Sahib, Sahib" — ^the Durwan's whine was apolo- 
 getic. "Is the Sahib awake?" 
 "Who wants me?" 
 "Leh Shin, the Chinaman." 
 
 Joicey wiped his face with his handkerchief and 
 pulled open the door with a violent movement. 
 
 "Come in," he said, trying to speak naturally. 
 "What is it, Leh Shin?" 
 
 The Chinaman held a tweed hat in his hand and 
 stole into the room like a shadow. 
 '/What now, Leh Shin?" 
 
 Joicey spoke in Yunnanese with the fluency of 
 long habit, and even though he was angry he kept 
 his voice low as though he feared to be overheard. 
 "The Master of Masters will speak for me," said 
 the Chinaman, standing before him. "All day the 
 police stand near to my house, and at night they do 
 not leave it. At one word from the Master, whose 
 speech is constructed of gold and precious metals, 
 they can be withdrawn, and for that word I 
 
 wait " He made a quick gesture with his tweed 
 
 cap. 
 
 "You wiU gain nothing by coming to my house, 
 you swine," said Joicey, his eyes staring and his veins 
 standing out on his forehead. "I will see what Mr. 
 
82 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 Hartley will do, but if you drag In my name or refer 
 him to me you will do yourself no good, do you 
 hear? No good." 
 
 Leh Shin watched him passively and waited until 
 he had finished. 
 
 "I will swear the oath," he said, blinking his eyes. 
 "I will not speak the name of the Master, but my 
 doors are locked, my house is a house for the water- 
 rats, and until the big Lord frees me I am a poor 
 man." 
 
 Joicey sat down heavily on a low chair. 
 
 "It shall be stopped," he said desperately. "I 
 will see that there is no more of this police super- 
 vision; you may take my word for it." 
 
 The Chinaman stood still, moving one foot to 
 the other. 
 
 "In dreams the Master has spoken these prom- 
 ises to me before. Can I be sure that it is not in a 
 dream that the Master speaks again?" 
 
 "I am awake," said Joicey, bitterly. "Mr. Hart- 
 ley is looking for the boy, and if the boy were found, 
 all search would stop," — he eyed the Chinaman 
 carefully, but the mask-like face did not change. 
 
 "And the little boy? Perhaps, Ruler and King, 
 the little boy is gone dead." 
 
 "You ask me that, you devil?" 
 
 "It is for the servant to ask," said Leh Shin, drop- 
 ping his lids for a second. 
 
 "Now, get out," said Joicey, between his clenched 
 teeth. "And if you come here to me again, at night, 
 I'll kill you." 
 
 "The Great One will not do that," said Leh Shin, 
 
THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS 83 
 
 placidly. "My assistant waits for me. It would 
 be known as fire is known when the forest is dry. 
 To-morrow or next day, if the police are gone, my 
 little house will be open again." He spoke the 
 words with deep emphasis. 
 
 "Get out," said Joicey, turning away his head. 
 
 Leh Shin looked at him with a sudden, oblique 
 glance like the flash of a knife. 
 
 "Speak no more. Lord of men and elephants; the 
 Durwan is now outside the door, and he listens." 
 
 "Good-night," said Joicey loudly, and he clicked 
 off the light and went to bed. 
 
 If the darkness was close in the large houses of 
 the Cantonment, it was shut into the very essence 
 of itself in the curio shop in Paradise Street. It hid 
 the carved devils from one another, it obliterated 
 the stone monsters that no one ever bought, and 
 which had grown to belong to the shop itself; it 
 dropped its black veil over the green dragons, and 
 the china ladies, and the silver bowls and the little 
 ivories, hiding everything out of sight; but it did 
 not hide the figure outside in the street. The little 
 man, with his pointed headdress and short jacket, 
 had the clear darkness all to himself. He was just 
 as polite by night as he was by day, and he bowed 
 and ushered imaginary buyers up the stone steps 
 with the same perpetual civility, and the same un- 
 ceasing smile, that bagged out his varnished cheeks 
 into joviality. 
 
 Dark as it was inside the shop, it must have been 
 darker along the rat-burrows of stairs, and the loft- 
 like rooms near the roof, but either up above or 
 
84 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 down below, the scent of cassia and sandal-wood 
 clung everywhere inside the curio shop, smelling 
 strongest around the glass cases and bales of deli- 
 cate silks. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah's Durwan slept across the doorway, 
 and was therefore the only object for the attention 
 of the little man, and likewise, therefore, he did not 
 point to his master, who came in, in the dead, heavy 
 hours before dawn. He could not have been far; 
 there was hardly any dust on his red velvet slippers, 
 and he brushed what there was from them with a 
 careful hand. As he placed his lamp on the floor, 
 the light threw odd shadows up the walls, turning 
 that of Mhtoon Pah himself into a grotesque and 
 gigantic mass of darkness, and when he stooped and 
 stood erect it jumped with a sudden living spring. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah moved about the shop on light feet. 
 He bent here and there to examine some of the ob- 
 jects closely, with the manner and gesture of a man 
 who loves beautiful things for their own sakes as 
 well as for the profit he hoped to gain from their 
 sale. When he had twice made a tour of inspec- 
 tion, he placed an alabaster Buddha in the centre of 
 a carved table and sat down before it. The 
 Buddha was dead white, with a red chain around his 
 neck, and on his head a gold cap with long, gem- 
 set ears hanging to the shoulders, and Mhtoon Pab 
 sat long in front of the figure, swaying a little and 
 moving his lips soundlessly. He appeared like a 
 man who is self-mesmerized by the flame of a can- 
 dle, and his face worked with suppressed and vio- 
 lent emotion ; at any moment it seemed as though he 
 
THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS 85 
 
 might break the silence with some awful, passion- 
 tossed sound. 
 
 Suddenly, he stopped in his voiceless worship, and, 
 leaning forward quickly, extinguished the lamp. If 
 he had heard any sound, it was apparently from 
 below, for he crouched on the ground with his head 
 close to the teak boarding, and crawled with slow, 
 noiseless care towards the door, A silk curtain cov- 
 ered the window, hiding the interior of the shop from 
 the street, and, when he reached the low woodwork 
 above which it hung, he twitched the curtain back 
 with a sudden movement of his hand and raised him- 
 self slowly until his head was on a level with the 
 glass. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah grew suddenly rigid, and the thick 
 black hair on his head seemed to bristle. Pressed 
 close against the window, with only a slender bar- 
 rier of glass between them, was the face of Leh 
 Shin, the Chinaman. A ray of white moonlight fell 
 across them both, and its clear radiance lighted up 
 every feature of the curio dealer's face, changing 
 its brown into a strange, ghastly pallor. For a mo- 
 ment they stood immovable, staring into each oth- 
 er's eyes, and the shadows behind Mhtoon Pah in 
 the shop, and the shadows behind Leh Shin in the 
 street, seemed to listen and wait with them, seemed 
 to creep closer and enfold them, seemed to draw up 
 and up on noiseless feet and hang suspended around 
 them. The moment might have endured for years, 
 so full was it of menace and passion, and then the 
 man outside moved quickly and the moonlight 
 
86 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 flooded in across the face and shoulders of the Bur- 
 man. 
 
 For a second longer he remained as though fas- 
 cinated, and then Mhtoon Pah wrenched at the door 
 and thundered back the heavy bolts. There were 
 flecks of foam on his lips, and his eyes rolled as he 
 dashed through the door and out down the steps, 
 rending the air with cries of murder. He was too 
 late, the Chinaman had gone. When the street 
 flocked out to see what the disturbance meant, 
 Mhtoon Pah was crouching on his steps in a kind 
 of fit. 
 
 "I have seen the face of the slayer of Absalom," 
 he shrieked, when the crowd had carried him in, and 
 recovered him to his senses. 
 
 "Is he a devil?" asked a young Burman, in tones 
 of joyful excitement. "A devil with iron claws has 
 been seen several nights lately." 
 
 "A Chinese devil," groaned Mhtoon Pah, speak- 
 ing through his clenched teeth. "One who shall yet 
 be hanged for his crime." 
 
 "Ah ! ah I" said the watchers. "He dreams that 
 it is a man, but it is known that a devil has walked 
 in Paradise Street, his jaws open. Certainly he has 
 eaten little Absalom." 
 
 Dawn was breaking, the pale, still hour that is 
 often the hour of death; and a cool breeze rippled 
 in the date palms and in the flat green leaves of the 
 rubber plants, and the festoons of succulent green 
 growths that climbed up the houses of the Canton- 
 ments, and dawn found the Rev. Francis Heath 
 sleeping quietly. He was lying with one arm under 
 
THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS 87 
 
 his head, and his worn face in almost child-like re- 
 pose. Wherever he was, sleep had carried him to 
 a place of peace and refreshment. When he awoke 
 he would have forgotten his dream, but for the mo- 
 ment the dream sufficed, and he rested in the circle 
 of its charm. 
 
 All the time that we are young and careless and 
 happy, we are building retreats for memory that 
 make harbours of rest in later years, when the 
 storms come with force. All the old things that did 
 not count, come back to calm and to restore. The 
 school-room, where the light flickered on a special 
 comer of the ceiling, telling the children to come out 
 and play; the tapping of the laurels outside the 
 church windows, and the musty smell of red rep 
 cushions along the pew where the hours were very 
 slow in passing; the white clover in the field behind 
 the garden, got at easily through a hole in the privet 
 hedge. The play of light and shadow over the 
 hills of home, the dusk at nightfall, and the homely 
 cawing of rooks. All the delicious things that went 
 with the smell of ripe strawberries under nets, where 
 thieving birds fluttered until the gardener let them 
 free again ; and the mystery of sparks flying up the 
 chimney when the winter logs blazed. Every sim- 
 ple joy is stored away in some lumber corner of the 
 minds of men, and when sleep comes, sometimes the 
 old things are taken out again. 
 
 The Rev. Francis Heath, like the rest of the 
 world, had his own secret doorway that led back to 
 wonderland, and it may have been that he was far 
 away from Mangadone in this child-world which is 
 
88 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 so hard to find again, as he slept, and the outside 
 world grew from grey to green, and from green to 
 misty gold. The sunlight flamed on the spire of the 
 Pagoda, it danced up the brown river and threw 
 long shadows before its coming, those translucent 
 shadows that no artist has ever yet been able to 
 paint. It turned the mohur trees blood-red, and the 
 grass to shining emerald green, and Mangadone 
 looked as though it had just come fresh from the 
 hands of its Creator. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah, recovered from his fit, was in his 
 shop early, and he 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 
 
THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS 89 
 
 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, em- 
 broidered with peaches, and small, crafty touches of 
 black here and there, and looked at it with the lov- 
 ing 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 ad- 
 vantage, 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 new& 
 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." 
 
90 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "Wah! Wah! I sent him and he did not re- 
 
 turn." 
 
 "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 out- 
 side 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 Hart- 
 ley Sahib; the Thakin will strike surely and swiftly." 
 
 "He will do nothing of the kind," sal^ 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. Ab- 
 salom is blacking boots in a New York hotel, weeks 
 
THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS 91 
 
 ago. — ^Ah ! what a coat I 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 be- 
 fore 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 satiie ques- 
 tion 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 blow- 
 ing and a breath of freshness in the air that has a 
 -charm to inspire a better outlook upon life. Every- 
 where it made itself felt in Mangadone, and like 
 Pippa in the poem, the wind passed along, leaving 
 everj^hing and everybody a little better for its com- 
 ing. It passed through the open veranda of the 
 huge hospital, and touched the fever patients with 
 its cool breath ; it hurried through the Chinese quar- 
 ter, blew along Paradise Street, dusting the gesticu- 
 lating 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 lit- 
 tle 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 complimen- 
 tary readiness, and they turned along a wooded road, 
 where the shadows were deep and where Hartley 
 
 92 
 
MRS. WILDER IN A MELTING MOOD 93 
 
 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 tact- 
 ful man, and properly appreciated by a very beau- 
 tiful 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 growng 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 
 
94 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 her face revealed nothing, and was quite expression- 
 less. 
 
 "Whoever I saw him with?" she echoed reflec- 
 tively. "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 si- 
 lence. 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, ap- 
 peared 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 Pollfce would have given much 
 
MRS. WILDER IN A MELTING MOOD 95 
 
 at ^hat 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 her- 
 self to be careful, steadying her nerve and reining in 
 a desire to pour out a flood of circumstantial evi- 
 dence, calculated to convince the Head of the Po- 
 lice. 
 
 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 over- 
 powering, redundant and extreme in the wordy proof 
 of her innoceiice 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. 
 
96 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 Hartley flushed and looked self-conscious. 
 
 "To be quite candid, that was what I was think- 
 ing 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 Sihining 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 re- 
 luctantly. "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. WUder had led him clean away from the 
 subject under discussion, to something infinitely more 
 satisfying and intetesting, 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 Ab- 
 salom , 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 
 
MRS. WILDER IN A MELTING MOOD 97 
 
 uneasiness to the mind of the Rector of St. Jude's 
 Church. "Mixed up" was a curious way of ex- 
 pressing 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 di- 
 lemma. 
 
 Mrs. Wilder had not looked round, though she 
 very well knew that Hartley was waiting and hop- 
 ing that she would, and once she had turned the first 
 bend she touched the pony with her heel and can- 
 tered 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 lim- 
 itless, and she could not deny that her fear was play- 
 ing 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 curi- 
 ously, wondering what It was that occupied her mind 
 and made her frown as she thought. 
 
98 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 bet- 
 ter it would be, If, in the end, the Rev. Francis 
 Heath was led into the awful pitfalls of cross-ex- 
 amination. 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.' " 
 
MRS. WILDER IN A MELTING MOOD 99 
 
 "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 sup- 
 pose 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 Hart- 
 ley. As you say, he's a fool, a silly, trusting ass, 
 the sort of man who is child's-play to a girl of six- 
 teen. If you must have a string of loafers to prove 
 that your attractions outwear anno dotnini, 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 mar- 
 ried 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 un- 
 til 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 
 
lOO THE POINTING MAN 
 
 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 thank- 
 ful 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 wor- 
 ried, 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 con- 
 versation. Quagmires are bad ground for walk- 
 ing, and she was In a hurry to reach terra firma 
 again. She came round the table and slipped her 
 arm through his. 
 
MRS. WILDER IN A MELTING MOOD loi 
 
 "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 ges- 
 ture 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 draw- 
 ing-room and her face grew grey and pinched, and 
 she sat with her chin propped on her hands, think- 
 ing. 
 
 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 SUD- 
 DEN 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 Man- 
 gadone, 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 cer- 
 tain that she desired him to do so. She worked in- 
 directly 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 inex- 
 
 102 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME 103 
 
 orable detail of circumstance after circumstance led 
 on to a very definite conclusion. The wooden fig- 
 ure 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 writ- 
 ing-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 fall- 
 ing 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 pre- 
 ceded 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 Re^v. 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 mur- 
 dered body, or for the dupe who has suffered plun- 
 
I04 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 der, 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 bottom- 
 less 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, s, 
 
 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 melan- 
 choly 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 still- 
 ness. 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 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME 105 
 
 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 go- 
 ing to happen. The thought came, as such thoughts 
 do come, out of nowhere in particular, and yet Hart- 
 ley waited with a sense of discomfort. 
 
 When he turned away angry at his own momen- 
 tary 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 clear- 
 ness, 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. 
 
io6 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "I was moonstruck by the edge of that con- 
 founded 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 
 duUy. 
 
 "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 con- 
 versation 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. 
 
 "Any news?" asked Hartley without enthusiasm. 
 
 "Not that I have heard." 
 
 Silence fell again, and they walked out on to the 
 road. Pools of afternoon rain still lay here and 
 there in the depressions, but Joicey took no heed of 
 them, and splashed onj staining his white trousers 
 with liquid mud. 
 
 "By the way," he said, clearing his throat as 
 though his words stuck there, "have you heard any- 
 thing more in connection with the disappearance of 
 that boy you were talking of the other evening?" 
 
 Hartley did not reply for a moment, and just as 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME 107 
 
 he was about to speak, Mrs. Wilder's car passed, 
 and Mrs. Wilder leaned forward to smile at the 
 Head of the Police; a small buggy followed with 
 some more friends of Hartley's, and then another 
 car, and the road was clear again. 
 
 "I believe I am on the right track, but I don't 
 like it, Joicey. I'm damned if I do." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "It comes too close to home," — Hartley spoke 
 with a jerk. "A hateful job — I thought I'd tell 
 
 you " He spoke in broken sentences, and his 
 
 words affected the Banker very perceptibly. 
 
 "Can't you drop it?" 
 
 Joicey came to a standstill, and his voice was low- 
 ered almost to a whisper. 
 
 "I wish to Heaven I could, but it's a question of 
 duty," — ^he could hardly see Joicey's face in the gath- 
 ering gloom. "I suppose you guess what I'm driv- 
 ing at, Joicey, though how you guess, I don't know." 
 
 "I think I'll say good night here. Hartley," — 
 the Banker's voice was unnatural and wavering. "I 
 can't discuss it with you. It's got to be proved," he 
 spoke more heatedly. "What have you got? Only 
 the word of a stinking native. I tell you it's mon- 
 strous." He stopped and clutched Hartley's arm, 
 and seemed as though he was staggering. 
 
 "What has come over you, Joicey; are you ill?" 
 
 "I'U sit down here for a moment," — Joicey 
 walked towards a low wall. "Sometimes I get these 
 attacks. I'm better after they are over. Better, 
 much better. Leave me here to go back by myself, 
 Hartley. You need have no fear, I'm over it now; 
 
io8 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 I'll rest for a little and then go my way quickly. 
 Believe me, I'd rather be alpne." 
 
 Very reluctantly, Hartley quitted him. He felt 
 that Joicey was ill, and might even be beginning the 
 horrible phase of "breaking up," which comes on 
 with such fatal speed in a tropical climate. He went 
 back after he had gone a mile along the road, but 
 Joicey was no longer there. It was too late to think 
 of going to the Club, for the road that Joicey and 
 Hartley had followed led away from the residential 
 quarter of Mangadone, and lie disliked the idea of 
 going back to his own bungalow and waiting through 
 the dismal hour that lies across the evening between 
 the time to come Imand the time to dress for dinner. 
 
 Had there been a friendly house near. Hartley 
 would have gone in on the chance of finding some- 
 one at home, but as there was not, he made the best 
 of existing circumstances and took his way along 
 the road towards his own bungalow. He could not 
 deny that his walk with Joicey had only served to 
 depress- his spirits, and he was sorry to think that 
 his friend was so obviously in bad health. The 
 world seemed an uncomfortable place, full of 
 gloomy surprises, and Hartley wished that he had 
 a wife to go back to. Not a superb being like Mrs. 
 Wilder, who was encircled by the halo of High Ro- 
 mance, but just an ordinary wife, with a friendly 
 smile and a way of talking about everyday things 
 while she darned socks. Somewhere in his domes- 
 tic heart Hartley considered sock-mending a beau- 
 tiful and symbolic act, and yet he could not picture 
 Mrs. Wilder occupied In such a fashion. 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME 109 
 
 A man with a wife to go back to is never at the 
 same loose end as a man who has no need ever to 
 be punctual for a solitary meal, and Hartley walked 
 quickly because he wanted to get clear of his de- 
 pression, rather than for any reason that compelled 
 him to be up to time. 
 
 The gathering darkness drew out the flare over 
 the city, and, here and there, lamps dotted the road, 
 until, turning up a short cut, he was into the region 
 of trams once more. The lighted cars, filled with 
 gay Burmese and soldiers from the British Regiment, 
 and European-clad, dark-skinned creatures of mixed 
 races, looked cheerful and encouraged to better 
 thoughts. Hartley crossed the busy thoroughfare 
 below the Pagoda steps and went on quickly, for he 
 recognized the outline of Mhtoon Pah on his way 
 to bum amber candles before his newly-erected 
 shrine. He was in no mood to talk to the curio 
 dealer just then, and he avoided him carefully and 
 plunged down a tree-bowered road that led to the 
 bridge, and from the bridge to the hill-rise where 
 his own gate stood open. 
 
 It pleased him to see that lamps were lighted 
 in the house, and he felt conscious that he was hun- 
 gry, and would be glad of dinner; he made up his 
 mind to do himself well and rout the tormenting 
 thoughts that pursued him, and to-morrow he would 
 see Francis Heath and have the whole thing put on 
 paper once and for all. He even whistled as he 
 came along the short drive and under the portico, 
 where a night-scented flower smelt strong and sweet. 
 His boy met him with the information that there 
 
no THE POINTING MAN 
 
 was a Sahib within wafting. A Sahib who had evi- 
 dently come to stay, for a strange-looking servant in 
 the veranda rose and salaamed, and sat down again 
 by his master's kit with the patience of a man who 
 looks out upon eternity. 
 
 Hartley hardly glanced at the servant. Visitors, 
 tumbling from anywhere, were not altogether un- 
 usual occurrences. Men on the way back from a 
 shoot in the jungles of Upper Burma, men who were 
 old school friends and were doing a leisurely tour 
 to Japan and America, men of his own profession 
 who had leave to dispose of; all or any of these 
 might arrive with a servant and a portmanteau. 
 Whoever it was. Hartley was predisposed to give 
 him a welcome. He had come just when he was 
 wanted, and he hurried in, a light of pleasure in his 
 blue eyes. 
 
 Near the lamp, a book of verses open on his knee, 
 sat Hartley's unexpected guest. He was slim, dark, 
 and vital, but where his arresting note of vitality lay 
 would have been hard to explain. No one can tell 
 exactly what it is that marks one man as a cour- 
 ageous man, and another as a coward, and yet, with- 
 out need of any test, these things may be known and 
 judged beforehand. The man whose eyes followed 
 the lines: 
 
 "They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
 The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep" — 
 
 was as distinctive as he well could be, and yet his 
 face was not expressive. His dark, narrow eyes 
 were dull, and his finely-cut features small and per- 
 
CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME m 
 
 feet, rather than bold and strong; his long hands 
 were the hands of a woman more than those of a 
 man, and his figure was slight to boyishness. j 
 
 When Hartley let his full joy express itself in 
 husky, cheery words of surprise, his visitor said very 
 little, but what he did say was spoken in a pleasant, 
 low voice. 
 
 "Coryndon," said Hartley again. "Of all men 
 on earth I wanted to see you most. You've done 
 what you always do, come in the 'nick.' " i 
 
 Coryndon smiled, a languid, half-amused gleam 
 of mirth. i 
 
 "I am only passing through, my job is finished." 
 
 "But you'll stay for a bit?" I 
 
 "You said just now that I was here in the 'nick'; 
 if the nick is interesting, I'll see." 
 
 "I'll go and arrange about your rooms," said 
 Hartley, and he appeared twice his normal size be- 
 side his guest, as a St. Bernard might look standing 
 by a greyhound. "We will talk afterwards." 
 
 Coryndon watched him go out without change of 
 expression, and, sliding back into his chair, took 
 up his book again. 
 
 "They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
 The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep." 
 
 Coryndon leaned back and half closed his eyes; 
 the words seemed potent, as with a spell, and he 
 called up a vision of the forsaken Palace where 
 wild things lived and where revels were long for- 
 gotten — solitude and ruin that no one ever crossed 
 to explore or to see — with the eyes of a man who 
 
112 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 can rebuild a mighty past. Solitude in the halls and 
 marble stairways, ruin of time in the fretted screens, 
 and broken cisterns holding nothing but dry earth. 
 Nothing there now but the lion and the lizard, not 
 even the ghost of a light footfall, or the tinkle of 
 glass bangles on a rounded arm. 
 
 Coryndon had almost forgotten Hartley when he 
 came back, flushed and pleased, and full of a host's 
 anxiety about his guest's welfare. 
 
 "I hope you haven't been bored?" 
 
 "No," said Coryndon, touching the book, "I've 
 been amusing myself in my own way," and he fol- 
 lowed Hartley out of the room. 
 
XI 
 
 SHOWS HOW THE "WHISPER FROM TAe DAWN OF 
 life" enables CORYNDON TO TAKE THE DRIFT- 
 ING THREADS BETWEEN HIS FINGERS 
 
 VERY probably Hartley believed that he knew 
 "all about" Coryndon; he knew at least, that 
 the Government of India looked upon him as the 
 best man they had to unravel the most intricate case 
 that murder or forgery, coining or fraud of any 
 sort, could tangle into mysterious knots. Coryn- 
 don had intuition and patience, and once he under- 
 took a case he followed it through to the ultimate 
 conclusion ; and so it was that Coryndon stood alone, 
 a department in himself, possibly aided by the po- 
 lice and the shadower, but capable of discovering 
 anything, once he bent his mind to the business of 
 elucidation. 
 
 Beyond the fact that he had been born some- 
 where in a jangle clearing in Upper Burma, and that 
 at ten years old he had gone to India to a school in 
 the Hills, then had vanished for years to reappear 
 in the service of the Government, his story was not 
 known to anyone except himself. No one doubted 
 that he had "a touch of the country" in his blood. 
 It displayed itself in unmistakable physical traits, 
 and his knowledge of its many tongues and lan- 
 
 .. "3 
 
114 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 guages was the knowledge that first made him real- 
 ize that his future career lay in India. 
 
 Colonel Coryndon, his father, died just as the 
 boy was leaving school, and left him a little money; 
 just enough to keep him from the iron yoke of clerk- 
 ship, and to allow of his waiting for what he 
 wanted. Behind his dark eyes lived a brain that 
 could concentrate with the grip of a vise upon any 
 subject that interested him, and he puzzled his mas- 
 ters at his school. Coryndon was a curious mixture 
 of imagination and strong common sense; few real- 
 ize that it is only the imaginative mind that can see 
 behind the curtain that divides Ufe from life, and 
 discern motives. 
 
 He saw everything with an almost terrible clear- 
 ness. Every detail of a room, every line in a face, 
 every shop in a street he walked through, every man 
 he spoke with, was registered in his indelible book 
 of facts. This, in itself, is not much. Men can 
 learn the habit of observation as they can train their 
 minds to remember dates or historical facts, but, in 
 the case of Coryndon, this art was inherent and his 
 by birth. He started with it, and his later training 
 of practising his odd capacity for recalling the small- 
 est detail of every day that passed only intensified 
 his power in this direction. With this qualification 
 alone he could have been immensely useful as a se- 
 cret agent, but in addition to this he had also his 
 other gift, his intuition and power of altering his 
 own point of view for that of another man, and see- 
 ing his subject through the eyes of everyone con- 
 cerned in a question. 
 
CORYNDON TAKES DRIFTING THREADS us 
 
 His nervous vitality was great, and there were 
 plenty of well-educated native subordinates who be- 
 lieved him gifted with occult forces, since his ways 
 of getting at his astonishing conclusions were never 
 explained to any living soul, because Coryndon could 
 not have explained them to himself. 
 
 His identity was well known at Headquarters, but 
 beyond that limit it was carefully hidden from the 
 lower branches of the executive, as too wide and 
 too public recognition would have narrowed his 
 sphere of action. As Wesley declared the whole 
 world to be his parish, so the whole of Asia was 
 Coryndon's sphere of action, and only at Headquar- 
 ters was it ever known where he actually might be 
 found, or what employment occupied his brain. He 
 came like a rain-cloud blown up soundlessly on the 
 east wind, and vanished like morning mists, and no 
 one knew what he had learnt during his silent pass- 
 ing. 
 
 Men with voices like brass trumpets praised and 
 encouraged him, and men who knew the dark by- 
 ways of criminal investigation were hardly jealous 
 of him. Coryndon was a freak, an exception, a 
 man who stood beyond competition, and was as sure 
 as he was mysterious. He was "explained" in a 
 dozen ways. His face, to begin with, made disguise 
 easy, and the touch of the country did much for him 
 in this respect. He had played behind his father's 
 up-country bungalow with little Burmese boys and 
 talked in their speech before he knew any English; 
 the Bazaar was an open book to him, and the mind 
 of the native, so some men said with a shade of con- 
 
ii6 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 tempt, not too far from his own to make understand- 
 ing impossible. 
 
 Besides all this, there were those other years, 
 after he left the school under the high snow ranges, 
 when Coryndon had vanished entirely, and of these 
 years he never spoke. And yet, with all this, 
 Coryndon was unmistakably a "Sahib," a man of 
 unusual culture and brilliant ability. He had com- 
 plete powers of self-control, and his one passion was 
 his love of music, and though *he never played for 
 anyone else, men who had come upon him unawares 
 had heard him playing to himself in a way that was 
 as surprising as everjrthing else about Coryndon sur- 
 prised and astonished. 
 
 He had dreamed as a boy, and he still dreamed 
 as a man. The subtle beauty of a line of verse led 
 him into visionary habitations as fair as any ever 
 disclosed to poet or artist. He could lose himself 
 utterly in the lights and shadows of a passing day, 
 while he watched for a doomed man at the entrance 
 of a temple, or brooded over painted sores and cried 
 to the rich for alms by a dusty roadside ; a very dif- 
 ferent Coryndon to the Coryndon who looked at 
 Hartley across the white cloth of the round dinner- 
 table. 
 
 The truth about Coryndon was that he read the 
 souls of men. Mhtoon Pah had boasted to Hartley 
 that he read the walk of the world he looked at, but 
 Coryndon went much further; and as Hartley talked 
 about outward things, whilst the Boy and the 
 Khitmutghar flitted in and out behind them, carrying 
 plates and dishes, his guest was considering him 
 
CORYNDON TAKES DRIFTING THREADS 117 
 
 with a quiet and almost moonstruck gravity of mind. 
 He knew just how far Hartley could go, and he 
 knew exactly what blocked him. Hartley was tied 
 into the close meshes of circumstance; he argued 
 from without and worked inward, and Coryndon 
 had discovered the flaw in this process before he left 
 his school. 
 
 When they were alone at last, Hartley pushed 
 his chair closer to Coryndon and leaned forward. 
 
 "One moment." Coryndon's voice was lowered 
 slightly, and he strolled to the door. 
 
 "Boy," he called, and with amazing alacrity Hart- 
 ley's serva^it appeared. 
 
 "Tell my servant," he said, speaking in English, 
 "that I want the cigar tin." 
 
 "Do you believe he was listening?" 
 
 "I am sure of it." 
 
 Hartley flushied angrily, and he was about to 
 speak when Coryndon's man came into the room, 
 salaaming on the threshold, carrying a black tin. 
 
 "Would you like a little stroll in the garden?" 
 said Coryndon. "It would be pleasant before we 
 sit down," and Hartley followed him out. 
 
 "Did you bring any cigars down?" 
 
 Hartley spoke for the sake of saying something, 
 more than for any reasonable desire to know 
 whether Coryndon had done so or not, arid his reply 
 was a low, amused laugh. 
 
 "In ten minutes Shiraz will do a little juggling 
 for your servants," he said placidly. "There are 
 no cigars in the tin. I hope you didn't want one, 
 Hartley? He will probably tell them that I am a 
 
ii8 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 new arrival, picked up by him at Bombay. What- 
 ever he tells them, they will find him amusing." 
 
 A misty moonlight lighted the garden with a soft, 
 yellow haze, and the harsh rattling of night beetles 
 sounded unusually loud and noisy in the silence. 
 
 "You said that you had just finished a job?" 
 
 "I have, and now I am on leave. The Powers 
 have given me four months, and I am going to Lon- 
 don to hear the Wagner Cycle. I promised myself 
 that long ago, and unless something very special 
 crops up to prevent me, I shall start in a week from 
 now." 
 
 They took another silent turn. 
 
 "Did your last job work out?" 
 
 "Yes. It took a long time, but I got back into 
 touch with things I had begun to forget, and it was 
 interesting. Shall we go back into the house?" 
 
 "Come in here," said Hartley, taking his way 
 into the sitting-room. "I have some notes in my 
 safe that I want you to look at. The truth is, 
 Coryndon, I'm tackling rather a nasty business, and 
 if you can help me, I'll be eternally grateful to you. 
 It has got on my nerves." 
 
 Coryndon bowed his head silently and drew up a 
 chair near the table. All the time that Hartley 
 talked to him, he listened with close attention. The 
 Head of the Police went into the whole subject at 
 length, telling the story as it had happened, and 
 leaving out, so far as he knew, no point that bore 
 upon the question. First he told of the disappear- 
 ance of the boy Absalom, the grief and frantic 
 
CORYNDON TAKES DRIFTING THREADS 119 
 
 despair of Mhtoon Pah, and his visit to Hartley in 
 the very room where they sat. 
 
 "He was away from the curio shop that night, 
 you say?" 
 
 "Yes, at the Pagoda. He is building a shrine 
 there. His statement to me was that he went away 
 just after dark, and the boy had already left an 
 hour before." 
 
 Coryndon said nothing, but waited for the rest of 
 the story, and, bit by bit, Hartley set it before him. 
 
 "Heath saw Absalom, and admitted it to me," he 
 said, pulling at his short, red moustache. "Even 
 then he showed a very curious amount of irritation, 
 and refused to say anything further. Then he lied 
 to me when I went to the house, and there is Atkins' 
 testimony to the fact that he is paying a man to keep 
 quiet." 
 
 "Has the man reappeared since?" 
 
 "Not since I had the house watched." 
 
 Coryndon's eyes narrowed and he moved his 
 hands slightly. 
 
 "Next there is the very trifling evidence of Mrs. 
 Wilder. It doesn't count for much, but it goes to 
 prove that she knows something of Heath which 
 she won't give away. She knows something, or she 
 wouldn't screen him. That is simple deduction." 
 
 "Quite simple." 
 
 "Now, with reference to Joicey," went on Hart- 
 ley, with a frown. "I don't personally think that 
 Joicey knows or remembers whether he did see 
 Heath. My Superintendent swears that he did go 
 down Paradise Street on the night of the twenty- 
 
I20 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 ninth, but Joicey is ill, and he said he wasn't in Man- 
 gadone then. He has been seedy for some time and 
 may have mixed up dates." 
 
 "You attach no importance to him?" 
 
 "Practically none." Hartley leaned back in his 
 chair and lighted a cheroot. 
 
 Coryndon touched the piece of silk rag with his 
 hand. 
 
 "This rag business is out of place, taken in con- 
 nection with Heath." 
 
 "I don't accuse Heath, Coryndon, but I believe 
 that he knows where the boy went. The last thing 
 that was told me by Mhtoon Pah was that the gold 
 lacquer bowl that was ordered by Mrs. Wilder was 
 found on the steps of the shop. Though what that 
 means, the devil only knows. Mhtoon Pah consid- 
 ers it likely that the Chinaman, Leh Shin, put it 
 there, but I have absolutely nothing to connect Leh 
 Shin with the disappearance, and I have withdrawn 
 the men who were watching the shop." 
 
 "Interesting," said Coryndon slowly. 
 
 "Can you give me any opinion? I'm badly in 
 need of help." 
 
 Coryndon shook his head, his hand still touching 
 the stained rag idly. 
 
 "I could give you none at all, on these facts." 
 
 Hartley looked at him with a fixed and imploring 
 stare. 
 
 "In a place like this, to be the chief mover, the 
 actual incentive to disclosing God knows what, is 
 simply horrible," he said in a rough, pained voice. 
 "I've done my share of work, Coryndon, and I've 
 
CORYNDON TAKES DRIFTING THREADS 121 
 
 taken my own risks^, but any cases I've had against 
 white men haven't been against men like the 
 Padre." 
 
 Coryndon gave a little short sigh that had weari- 
 ness in its sound, weariness or impatience. 
 
 "What you have told me involves three princi- 
 pals, and a score of others." He was counting as 
 he spoke. "Any one of them may be the man you 
 are looking for, only circumstances indicate one in 
 particular. You are satisfied that you have got the 
 line. I could not confidently say that you have, un- 
 less I had been working the case myself, and had fol- 
 lowed up every clue throughout." 
 
 Hartley got up and paced the room, his hands 
 deep in the pockets of his dinner jacket. 
 
 "I am convinced that Heath will have to be 
 forced to speak, and, I may as well be honest with 
 you — I don't like forcing him." 
 
 Coryndon was not watching his host, he was lean- 
 ing back in his chair, his eyes on a little spiral of 
 smoke that circled up from his cigarette. 
 
 "I wish that damned little Absalom had never 
 been heard of, and that it was anybody's business 
 but mine to find him, if he is to be found." 
 
 If Coryndon's finely-cut lips trembled into an in- 
 stantaneous smile, it passed almost at once, and he 
 looked quietly round at Hartley, who still paced, 
 looking like an overgrown schoolboy in a bad mood. 
 
 "I wish I could help you. Hartley, but I have not 
 enough to go on. As you say, the case is unusual, 
 and it makes it impossible for me to advise." He 
 got up and stretched himself. "There is one thing 
 
122 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 I will do, if you wish it, and, from what you said, 
 you may wish it; I will take over the whole thing 
 — for my holiday, and the Wagner Cycle will have 
 to wait." 
 
 Hartley came to a standstill before his guest. 
 
 "You'll do that, Coryndon?" 
 
 "The case interests me," said Coryndon, "other- 
 wise, I should not suggest it." He paused for a 
 moment and reflected. "I shall have to make your 
 bungalow my headquarters; that is the simplest 
 plan. Any absences may be accounted for by shoot- 
 ing trips and that sort of thing. That part of it is 
 straightforward enough, and I can see the people I 
 want to see." 
 
 "You shall have a free hand to do anything you 
 like," said Hartley, "And any help that I can give 
 you." 
 
 Coryndon looked at him for a moment without 
 replying. 
 
 "Thank you. Hartley. Our methods are differ- 
 ent, as you know, but when I want you, I will tell 
 you how you can help me." 
 
 He walked across the room to where two tum- 
 blers and a decanter of whisky stood on a tray, and, 
 pouring himself out a glass of soda water, sipped it 
 slowly. 
 
 "Here are my notes," said Hartley, in a voice of 
 great relief. "They will be useful for reference." 
 
 Coryndon folded them up and put them in his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Most of what Is there is also in my official re- 
 port." 
 
CORYNDON TAKES DRIFTING THREADS 123 
 
 Coryndon nodded his head, and, opening the pi- 
 ano, struck a light chord. After a moment he sat 
 down and played softly, and the air he played came 
 straight from the high rocks that guard the Afghan 
 frontier. Like a breeze that springs up at evening, 
 the little love-song lilted and whispered under his 
 compelling fingers, and the "Song of the Broken 
 Heart" sang itself in the room of Hartley, Head 
 of the Police. Where It carried Coryndon no one 
 could guess, but it carried Hartley into a very rose- 
 garden of sentimental fatuity, and when the music 
 stopped he gave a deep grunting sigh of content. 
 
 "I'll get some honest sleep to-night," he said as 
 they parted, and ten minutes afterwards he was ly- 
 ing under his mosquito-curtains, oblivious to the 
 world. 
 
 Coryndon's servant, Shiraz, was squatting across 
 the door that led into the veranda when his mas- 
 ter came in, and he waited for his orders. He 
 would have sat anywhere for weeks, and had done 
 so, to await the doubtful coming of Coryndon, whose 
 times and seasons no man knew. 
 
 When he was gone, Coryndon took out the bulky 
 packet of notes and extracted the piece of rag, which 
 he locked carefully away in a dispatch-box. He 
 then cleared a little space on the floor, and put the 
 papers lightly over one another. Setting a match 
 to them, he watched them light up and curl into 
 brittle tinder, and dissolve from that stage into a 
 ;heap of charred ashes, which he gathered up with 
 a careful hand and put into the soft earth of a fern- 
 box outside his veranda door. This being done, he 
 
124 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 sat down and began to think steadily, letting the 
 names drift through his brain, one by one, until 
 they sorted themselves, and he felt for the most use- 
 ful name to take first. 
 
 "Joicey, the Banker, is a man of no importance," 
 he murmured to himself, and again he said, "Joicey 
 the Banker." 
 
 It was nearly dawn when he got between the cool 
 linen sheets, and was asleep almost as his dark head 
 lay back against the soft white pillow. 
 
XII 
 
 SHOWS HOW A MAN MAY CLIMB A HUNDRED STEPS 
 INTO A PASSIONLESS PEACE, AND RETURN AGAIN 
 TO A WORLD OF SMALL TORMENTS 
 
 BY thetend of a week Coryndon had slipped into 
 the ways of Mangadone, slipped in quietly 
 and without causing much comment. He went to 
 the Club with Hartley and made the acquaintance 
 of nearly all his host's friends, and they, in return, 
 gave him the casual notice accorded to a passing 
 stranger who had no part or lot in their lives or in- 
 terests. Coryndon was very quiet and listened to 
 everything; he listened to a great deal in the first 
 three days, and Fitzgibbon, a barrister, offered to 
 take him round and show him the town. 
 
 Coryndon was "shown the town," but apparently 
 he found a lasting joy in sight-seeing, and could wit- 
 ness the same sights repeatedly without failing in- 
 terest. He climbed the steps to the Pagoda, under 
 the guidance of Fitzgibbon, the first afternoon they 
 met. 
 
 "Won't you come, too, Hartley?" asked the Bar- 
 rister. 
 
 "Not if I know it. I've been there about sixty 
 times. If Coryndon wants to see it, I'm thank- 
 ful to let him go there with you." 
 
 125 
 
126 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 Fitzglbbon, who had a craze for borrowing any- 
 thing that he was likely to want, had persuaded 
 Prescott, the junior partner in a rice firm, to lend 
 him his car, and as he sat in the tonneau beside 
 Coryndon, he pointed out the places of interest. 
 Their way lay first through the residential quarter, 
 and Hartley's guest saw the entrance gate and gar- 
 dens of Draycott Wilder's house. 
 
 "The most interesting and certainly the best-look- 
 ing woman in Mangadone lives there, a Mrs. Wilder. 
 Hartley ought to have told you about her; he is 
 rather favoured by the lady. Her husband is a 
 rising civilian. Mrs. Wilder has bought Asia, and 
 is wondering whether she'll buy Europe next." 
 
 Coryndon hardly appeared impressed or even in- 
 terested. 
 
 "So she is a friend of Hartley's?" he said care- 
 lessly. "I hadn't heard that." 
 
 Fitzgibbon laughed. 
 
 "It's something to be a friend of Mrs. Wilder — 
 that is, in Mangadone." 
 
 They sped on over the level road, and the car 
 swung through the streets that led towards the open 
 space before the temple. 
 
 "That is the curio dealer's shop. Don't get any 
 of your stuff there. The man's a robber." 
 
 "Which shop?" asked Coryndon patiently. 
 
 "We're past it now, but it was the one with a 
 dancing man outside of it, a funny little effigy." 
 
 Coryndon's eyes were turned to the Pagoda, and 
 he was evidently inattentive. 
 
 "It strikes you, doesn't it?" asked Fitzgibbon, in 
 
PEACE AND SMALL TORMENTS 127 ' 
 
 the tones of a gratified showman. "It always does 
 strike people who haven't seen it before." 
 
 "Naturally, when one has not seen it before," 
 echoed his companion, as the car drew up. 
 
 Coryndon stood for a moment looking at the en- 
 trance, and surveying the huge plaster dragons with 
 their gaping mouths and vermilion-red tongues. 
 They were ranged up a green slope, two on either 
 side of the brown fretted roof that covered the steep 
 tunnel that led up a flight of more than a hundred 
 steps to the flat plateau, where the golden spire 
 towered high over all, amid a crowd of lesser 
 minarets. 
 
 Surrounded by baskets of roses and orchids, little 
 silk-clothed Burmese girls sat on the entrance steps, 
 and sold their wares. Fitzgibbon would have hur- 
 ried on, but Coryndon, in true tripper fashion, 
 stopped and bought an armful of blossoms. 
 
 "What am I to do with these things?" he asked 
 helplessly. 
 
 "Oh, you'd better leave them before one of the 
 Gaudamas, and acquire merit. If you let them all 
 plunder you like this, we'll never get to the top." 
 
 Flight after flight, the two men climbed slowly, 
 and Coryndon stood at intervals to watch the crowd 
 that came up and down. The steps were so steep 
 that the arch above them only disclosed descending 
 feet, but Coryndon watched the feet appear first 
 and then the rest of the hurrying or loitering men 
 and women, and he sat on a seat beside a little gath- 
 ering of yellow-robed Hypongyis until Fitzgibbon 
 lost all patience. 
 
128 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "There is a whole town of piety to see up at the 
 top. Come on, man; we have hours of it yet to get 
 through. Don't waste time over those stalls. 
 Every picture of the Buddha story was made in Bir- 
 mingham.^' 
 
 Progressing a little faster, Fitzgibbon piloted 
 Coryndon past a stall where yellow candles and 
 bundles of joss-sticks in red paper cases were sold 
 at a varying price. 
 
 "I must get some of these," objected Coryndon, 
 who added a rupee's worth of incense and a white 
 cheroot to his collection. 
 
 When they passed through the last archway and 
 gained the plateau, he looked round with eyes that 
 spoke his keen interest. Even though he had been 
 there many times before, Coryndon looked at the 
 sight with eyes that grew shadowed by the dream- 
 ing soul that lived within him. 
 
 Twilight was gathering behind the trees ; only the 
 gold-laced spires of a thousand minarets caught the 
 last light of the sun. On the plateau below the great 
 pillar, that glimmered like a golden sword from 
 base to bell-hung Htee, lay what Fitzgibbon had de- 
 scribed as "a little town of piety." A village of 
 shrines and Pagodas, each built with seven roofs, 
 open-fronted to disclose the holy place within ; some 
 large as a small chapel; some small, giving room 
 only for the figure of the Gaudama. Here and 
 there, the votive offerings had fallen into decay, and 
 the gold-leaf covering the Buddha was black and 
 dilapidated by the passing of years, for there is no 
 merit to be acquired in rebuilding or renovating a 
 
PEACE AND SMALL TORMENTS 129 
 
 sacred place. From innumerable shrines, uncounted 
 Buddhas looked out with the same long, contempla- 
 tive eyes; in bronze, in jade, in white and black mar- 
 ble, in grey stone and gilded ebony, the passionless 
 face of the great Peace looked out upon his children. 
 
 Near to where Coryndon and the Barrister stood 
 together, in the peach-coloured evening light, a large 
 shrine with a fretted roof was thronged with wor- 
 shippers, and Coryndon stood on the steps and 
 looked in. The floor of black, polished marble 
 dimly reflected the immense gold pillars that sup- 
 ported a lofty ceiling, lost entirely in the gloom, and 
 before a blaze of candles and a floating veil of 
 scented grey smoke a priest bowed himself, and 
 prayed in a low, chanting voice. The face of the 
 Lord Buddha behind the rails was lighted by the 
 wind-blown flame of many tapers, so that it almost 
 looked as though he smiled out of his far-away Nir- 
 vana upon his kneeling worshippers, who could ask 
 nothing of him, not even mercy, since the salvation 
 of a man is in his own hands. 
 
 Before the rails, a settle with low gilt legs was 
 covered with offerings of flowers, that added their 
 scent to the heavy air, and on a small table a feast 
 of cakes and sweets was placed, to be distributed 
 later on among the poor. Coryndon disposed of his 
 burden of pink and white roses and little magenta 
 prayer-flags, and lighted a bundle of joss-sticks, be- 
 fore they came out again and wandered on. 
 
 As the daylight faded the lights from the shrines 
 and the small booths grew stronger, and the rising 
 night wind, coming in from the river, rang the sil- 
 
I30 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 ver bells arounc} the spires, filling the whole air with 
 tinkling sound, and the slow-moving crowd around 
 them laughed and joked, like people at a fair. His 
 eyes still full of dreams, Coryndon followed with 
 them, keeping one small packet of amber candles to 
 light in honour of some other Buddha in another 
 shrine. 
 
 • "Funny devils, these Burmese," remarked the 
 Barrister. "They never clean up anything. Look 
 at the years of tallow collected under that spiked 
 gate that is falling off its hinges. That black little 
 Buddha inside must once have been a popular fa- 
 vourite, but no one gives him anj^hing now." 
 
 They turned a comer past a booth where bottles 
 full of pink and yellow fluid, and green leaves, 
 wrapped around betel-nut, appeared to be the chief 
 stock-in-trade, and a noise of hammering struck on 
 their ears. Here a new shrine was being erected and 
 was all but completed. A few Chinamen, who had 
 been working at it, were putting their tools into can- 
 vas bags, preparatory to withdrawing like the re- 
 maining daylight. 
 
 "This is Mhtoon Pah's edifice," said Fitz^bbon, 
 coming to a standstill. "He doesn't seem to have 
 spared expense, either. Shall we go in?" 
 
 The shrine was not a very large one, and the en- 
 trance was like the entrance to a grotto at an Exhi- 
 bition. Tiny facets of glass were crusted into grass- 
 green cement, shining like a thousar^d eyes, and, 
 seated on a vermilion lacquer dais, a Buddha, with 
 heavy eyelids that hid his strange eyes, presided over 
 an illumination of smoking flame. The smell of 
 
PEACE AND SMALL TORMENTS 131 
 
 joss-sticks was heavy on the air, and the filigree cloak 
 worn by the Buddha was enriched with red and 
 green glass that shone and glittered. 
 
 "They say the caste-mark in his forehead is a real 
 diamond," remarked the Barrister. "I don't sup- 
 pose it is, but at least it is a good imitation." 
 
 Coryndon was not listening to him ; he had gone 
 close to the marble rails, and was lighting his little 
 bunch of yellow tapers. He lighted them one by 
 one, and put each one down on the floor very slowly 
 and carefully, and when he had finished he turned 
 round. 
 
 "Mhtoon Pah is the man who has the curio 
 shop?" he asked. 
 
 "The very same. It gives you some idea of his 
 percentage on sales, what?" 
 
 Coryndon joined in his laugh, and they went out 
 again into the street of sanctity. Fitzgibbon was 
 now getting exhausted, for his companion's desire 
 to "do" the Pagoda was apparently insatiable; and 
 he asked interminable questions that the Barrister 
 was totally unable to answer. 
 
 Coryndon seemed to find something fresh and 
 interesting around every corner. The white ele- 
 phants delighted him, particularly where green 
 creepers had grown round their trunks, giving them 
 a realistic effect of enjoying a meal. The handles 
 off very common English chests-of-drawers, that 
 were set along a rail enclosing a sleeping Buddha, 
 pleased him like a child, as did the bits of looking- 
 glass with "Black and White Whisky," or "Apol- 
 linaris Water," inscribed across their faces. 
 
132 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "That sort of thing seems to attract them," ex- 
 plained Fitzgibbon. "In one of the shrines there 
 is a fancy biscuit-box at a Buddha's feet. It has got 
 'Huntley and Palmer' on the top, and pictures of 
 children and swans all around it. Funny devils, I 
 always say so." 
 
 At length he had to drag Cor5mdon away, almost 
 by main force. 
 
 "I'd like to have seen Mhtoon Pah," he objected. 
 "He ought to be on view with his chapel." 
 
 "Shrine, Coryndon. You can see him in his 
 shop," and they began the descent down the steep 
 steps. 
 
 "Look," said the Barrister quickly, "there is 
 Mhtoon Pah. No, not the man In white trousers, 
 that's a Chinaman with a pigtail under his hat; the 
 fat old thing in the short silk loongyi and crimson 
 head-scarf." 
 
 Coryndon hardly glanced at him, as he passed 
 with a scent of spice and sandal-wood in his gar- 
 ments; his attention had been attracted by a booth 
 where men were eating curry. 
 
 "It Is a curious custom to sell food in a place like 
 this," he remarked to the Barrister. 
 
 "It's part of the Oriental mind,'' replied his guide. 
 "No one understands It. No one ever will; so 
 don't try and begin, or you'll wear yourself out." 
 
 When they got back to the Club it was already 
 late, and the hall of the bar was crowded with men, 
 standing together In groups, or sitting in long, un- 
 compromising chairs under the Impression that they 
 were comfortable seats. 
 
PEACE AND SMALL TORMENTS 133 
 
 "Hullo, Joicey," said the Barrister, as he fell over 
 his legs. "I'm dog-beat. Been doing the Pagoda 
 
 with Coryndon. Do you know each other ?" 
 
 He waved his hand by way of introduction, and 
 Coryndon took an empty chair beside the Banker, 
 who heaved himself up a little in his seat, and sig- 
 nalled to a small boy in white, who was scuffling with 
 another small boy, also in white, and ordered some 
 drinks. 
 
 "I am new to it," explained Coryndon, and his 
 voice sounded tired, as though the Pagoda had been 
 a little too much for him. 
 
 Joicey did not reply; he was looking away, and 
 Coryndon followed his eyes. Near the wide stair- 
 case, and just about to go up it, a man was standing, 
 talking to a friend. He was dressed in an ill-cut 
 suit of white, with a V-shaped inlet of black under 
 his round collar; he held a topi of an old pattern 
 under his arm, and the light showed his face 
 cadaverous and worn. Joicey was holding the arm 
 of his chair, and his under-lip trembled. 
 
 "Inexplicable," he muttered, and drank with a 
 gulping sound. 
 
 "What did you say?" asked Coryndon politely. 
 
 "Say? Did I say anything? I can't remember 
 that I did." The Banker's voice was irritable, and 
 he still watched the clergyman. 
 
 "What strikes me about the Pagoda is the strong 
 Chinese element in the design. I am told that there 
 are a lot of Chinamen in Mangadone. I should 
 like to see their quarter." 
 
 "Hartley should be able to arrange that for you." 
 
134 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 Joicey was evidently growing tired of Coryndon's 
 freshness and enthusiasm, and he passed his hand 
 over his face, as though the damp heat of the night 
 depressed his mind. 
 
 "Hartley is very busy," said Coryndon, with the 
 determination of a man who intends to see what he 
 has come to see. "I don't like to be perpetually 
 badgering him. Could I go alone?" 
 
 "You could," said Joicey shortly. 
 
 "I want to miss nothing." 
 
 Coryndon turned his head away and looked at the 
 crowded room, fixing his gaze on a whirring fan 
 that hun^ low on a brass rod, and when he looked 
 round again, Joicey had got up and was making his 
 way out into the night. Fitzgibbon was surrounded 
 by several other men, and there was no sign of his 
 friend Hartley, so he got up and slipped out, stand- 
 ing hatless, until his eyes grew accustomed to the 
 darkness. 
 
 The strong lights from the veranda encroached 
 some way into the gloom, and, here and there, a few 
 people still sat around basket tables, enjoying the 
 evening air. Coryndon looked at them, with his 
 head bent forward, a little like a cat just about to 
 emerge through a door into a dark passage. For 
 a little time, he stood there, watching and listening, 
 and then he turned away and walked out along the 
 footpath, as though in a hurry to get back to his 
 bungalow. 
 
XIII 
 
 PUTS FORWARD THE FACT THAT A SUDDEN FRIEND- 
 SHIP NEED NOT BE BASED UPON A SUDDEN LIK- 
 ING; AND PASSES THE NIGHT UNTIL DAWN RE- 
 VEALS A SHAMEFUL SECRET 
 
 SOME ten days after Coryndon had taken up 
 his quarters with Hartley, he informed his host 
 that he intended to disappear for a time, and that 
 he would take his servant, Shiraz, with him. He 
 had been through every quarter of Mangadone be- 
 fore he set out to commence operations, and the 
 whole town lay clear as a map in his mind. 
 
 Hartley was dining out, "dining at the 
 Wilders'," he said casually, and he further in- 
 formed Coryndon that Mrs. Wilder had asked him 
 to bring his friend, but no amount of persuasion 
 could induce Coryndon to forgo an evening by him- 
 self. He pointed out to Hartley that he never went 
 into society, and that he found it a strain on his 
 mind when he required to think anything through, 
 and, with a greater show of reluctance than he 
 really felt. Hartley conceded to his wish, and Coryn- 
 don sat down to a solitary meal. He ate very spar- 
 ingly and drank plain soda water, and whilst he sat 
 at the table his long, yellow-white fingers played on 
 the cloth, and his eyes followed the swaying punkah 
 
 135 
 
136 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 mat with an odd, Intense light in their inscrutable 
 depths. 
 
 He had made Hartley understand that he never 
 talked over a case, and that he followed it out en- 
 tirely according to his own ideas, and Hartley hon- 
 estly respected his reserve, making no effort to 
 break it. 
 
 "When the hands are full, something falls to the 
 ground and is lost," Coryndon murmured to himself 
 as he got up and went to his room. "Shiraz," he 
 called, "Shiraz," and the servant sprang like a 
 shadow from the darkness in response to his mas- 
 ter's summons. 
 
 "To-night I go out." Coryndon waved his hand. 
 "To-morrow I go out, and of the third day — I 
 cannot tell. Let it be known to the servant people 
 that, like all travelling Sahibs, I wish to see the evil 
 of the great city. I may return with the morning, 
 but it may be that I shall be late." 
 
 "Inshdllah, Huzoor" murmured Shiraz, bowing 
 his head, "what is the will of the Master?" 
 
 "A rich man is marked among his kind; where 
 he goes the eyes of all men turn to follow his steps, 
 but the poor man Is as a grain of sand in the dust- 
 storm of a Northern Province. Great are the bless^ 
 ings of the humble and nee'dy of the earth, for like 
 the wind in its passing, they are Invisible to the eyes 
 of men." 
 
 Shiraz made no response; he lowered the green 
 chicks outside the doors and windows, and opened 
 a small box, battered with age and wear. 
 
 "The servant's box is permitted to remain In the 
 
DAWN REVEALS A SECRET 137 
 
 room of the Lord Sahib," he said with a low 
 chuckle. "When asked of my effrontery in this mat- 
 ter, I reply that the Lord Sahib is ignorant, that he 
 minds not the dignity of his condition, and behold, 
 it is never touched, though the leathern box of the 
 Master has been carefully searched by Babu, the 
 butler of Hartley Sahib, who knows all that lies 
 folded therein." 
 
 While he spoke he was busy unwrapping a collec- 
 tion of senah bundles, which he took out from be- 
 neath a roll of dusters and miscellaneous rubbish, 
 carefully placed on the top. The box had no lock 
 and was merely fastened with a bit of thick string, 
 tied Into a series of cunning knots. 
 
 When he had finished unpacking, he laid a faded 
 strip of brightly-coloured cotton on the bed, in com- 
 pany with a soiled jacket and a tattered silk head- 
 scarf, and, as Shiraz made these preparations, 
 Coryndon, with the aid of a few pigments in a tin 
 box, altered his face beyond recognition. He wore 
 his hair longer than that of the average man, and, 
 taking his hair-brushes, he brushed It back from his 
 temples and tied a coarse hank of black hair to it, 
 and knotted It at the back of his head. He dressed 
 quickly, his slight, spare form wound round the hips 
 with a cotton loongyi, and he pulled on the coat over 
 a thin, ragged vest, and sat down, while Shiraz tied 
 the handkerchief around his head. 
 
 The art of make-up is, in Itself, simple enough, but 
 the very much more subtle art of expression Is the 
 gift of the very few. It was hard to believe that 
 the slightly foreign-looking young man with Oriental 
 
138 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 eyes could be the pock-marked, poverty-stricken Bur- 
 man who stood in his place. 
 
 Slipping on a light overcoat, he pulied a large, soft 
 hat over his head, and walked out quickly through 
 the veranda. 
 
 "Now, then, Shiraz," he called out in a quick, 
 ill-tempered voice. "Come along with the lamp. 
 Hang it; you know what I mean, the butti. These 
 infernal garden-paths are alive with snakes." 
 
 Shiraz hastened after him, cringing visibly, and 
 swinging a hurricane lamp as he went. When they 
 had got clear of the house and were near the gate, 
 Coryndon spoke to him in a low voice. 
 
 "Pull my boots off my feet." Shiraz did as he 
 was bidden and slipped his master's feet into the 
 leather sandals which he carried under his -vinde 
 belt. "Now take the coat and hat, and in due time 
 I shall return, though not by day. Let it be known 
 that to-morrow we take our journey of seven days; 
 and it may be that to-morrow we shall do so." 
 
 "Inshallah," murmured Shiraz, and returned to 
 the house. 
 
 By night the streets of Mangadone were a sight 
 that many legitimate trippers had turned out to wit- 
 ness. The trams were crowded and the native shops 
 flared with light, for the night is cool and the day 
 hot and stifling; therefore, by night a large propor- 
 tion of the inhabitants of Mangadone take their 
 pleasure out of doors. In the Berlin Cafe the lit- 
 tle tables were crowded with those strange anoma- 
 lies, black men and women in European clothes; 
 There had been a concert in the Presentation Hall, 
 
DAWN REVEALS A SECRET 139 
 
 and the audience nearly all reassembled at the Berlin 
 Cafe for light refreshments when the musical pro- 
 gramme was concluded. 
 
 Paradise Street was not behindhand in the mat- 
 ter of entertainment: there was a wedding festival 
 in progress, and, at the modest cafe, a thick con- 
 course of men talking and singing and enjoying life 
 after their own fashion ; only the house of Mhtoon 
 Pah, the curio dealer, was dark, and it was before 
 this house, close to the figure of the pointing man, 
 that the weedy-looking Burman who had come out 
 of Hartley's compound stopped for a moment or 
 two. He did not appear to find anything to keep 
 him there; the little man had nothing better to offer 
 him than a closed door, and a closed door is a defi- 
 nite obstacle to anyone who is not a housebreaker, 
 or the owner with a key in his pocket; so, at least, 
 the Burman seemed to think, for he passed on up 
 the street towards the river end. 
 
 From there to the colonnade where the Chinese 
 Quarter began was a distance of half a by-street, 
 and Coryndon slid along, apologetically close to the 
 wall. He avoided the policeman in his blue coat 
 and high khaki turban, and his manner was gener- 
 ally inoffensive and harmless as he sneaked into the 
 low entrance of Leh Shin's lesser curio shop. A 
 large coloured lantern hung outside the inner room, 
 and a couple of candles did honour to the infuriated 
 Joss who capered In colour on the wall. 
 
 All the hidden vitality of the man seemed to live 
 in every line of his lithe body as he looked in, but 
 
140 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 it subsided again as he entered, and he stared va- 
 cantly around him. 
 
 There was no one in the shop but Leh Shin's as- 
 sistant, who was finishing a meal of cold pork, and 
 whose heavy shoulders worked with his jaws. He 
 ceased both movements when Coryndon entered, and 
 continued again as he spoke, the flap of his tweed 
 hat shaking like elephants' ears. He informed 
 Coryndon, who spoke to him in Yunnanese, that 
 Leh Shin was out, so that if he had anything to sell, 
 he would arrange the details of the bargain, and if 
 he wanted to buy, he could leave the price of the ar- 
 ticle with the trusted assistant of Leh Shin, 
 
 It took Coryndon some time to buy what he 
 needed, which appeared to be nothing more interest- 
 ing than a couple of old boxes. The Burman 
 needed these to pack a few goods in, as he medi- 
 tated inhabiting the empty, rat-infested house next 
 door but one to the shop of Leh Shin. Upon hear- 
 ing that they were to be neighbours, the assistant 
 grew sulky and informed Coryndon that trade was 
 slack if he wished to sell anything, but his eyes grew 
 crafty again when he was informed that his new ac- 
 quaintance did not act for himself, but for a friend 
 from Madras, who having made much money out of 
 a Sahib, whose bearer he had been for some years, 
 desired to open business in a small way with sweets 
 and grain and such-like trifles, whereby to gain an 
 honest living. 
 
 The assistant glanced at the clock, when, aftef 
 much haggling, the deal was concluded, and th« 
 Burman knotted the remainder of his money in a 
 
DAWN REVEALS A SECRET 141 
 
 small corner of his loongyi, and stood rubbing his 
 elbows, looking at the Chinaman, who appeared rest- 
 less. I 
 
 "V^here shall I find Leh Shin?" The Burman 
 put the question suddenly. "In what house am I 
 to seek him, assistant of the widower and the child- 
 less?" 
 
 The boy leered and jerked his thumb towards the 
 direction of the river. 
 
 "Closed to-night, follower of the Way," he said 
 with a smothered noise like a strangled laugh. 
 "Closed to-night. Every door shut, every light hid- 
 den, and those who go and demand the dreams 
 cannot pass in. I, only, know the password, since 
 my master receives high persons." He spat on the 
 floor. 
 
 Coryndon bowed his head in passive subjection, 
 
 "None else know my quantity," he murmured. 
 "These thieves in the lesser streets would mix me a 
 poison and do me evil." 
 
 The assistant scratched his head diligently and 
 looked doubtfully at the Burman. 
 
 "And yet I cannot remember thy face." 
 
 "I have been away up the big river. I have trav- 
 elled far to that Island, where I, with other inno- 
 cent ones, suffered for no fault of mine." 
 
 Leh Shin's assistant looked satisfied. If the Bur- 
 man were but lately returned from the convict set- 
 tlement on the Andaman Islands, it was quite likely 
 that he might not have been acquainted with him. 
 
 To all appearances, the bargain being concluded, 
 and Leh Shin being absent from the shop, there was 
 
142 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 nothing further to keep the customer, yet he made 
 no sign of wishing to leave, and, after a little pre- 
 amble, he invited the assistant to drink with him, 
 since, he explained, he needed company and had 
 taken a fancy to the Chinese boy, who, in his turn, 
 admitted to a liking for any man who was prepared 
 to entertain him free of expense. Leh Shin's assist- 
 ant could not leave the shop for another hour, so the 
 Burman, who did not appear inclined to wait so long, 
 went out swiftly, and came back with a bottle of na- 
 tive spirit. 
 
 Fired by the fumes of the potent and burning al- 
 cohol, the Chinaman became inquisitive, and wished 
 to hear the details of the crime for which his new 
 friend had so wrongfully suffered. He looked so 
 evil, so greasy, and so utterly loathsome that he 
 seemed to fascinate the Burman, who rocked himself 
 about and moaned as he related the story of his 
 wrong. His words so excited the ghoulish interest 
 of his listener that his bloated body quivered as he 
 drank in the details. 
 
 "And so ends the tale of his great evil; he that 
 was my friend," said Coryndon, rising from his heels 
 as he finished his story. "The hour grows late and 
 there is no comfort in the night, since I may not find 
 oblivion." He passed his hand stupidly over his 
 forehead. "My memory is lost, flapping like an 
 owl in the sunlight; offce the road to the house by 
 the river lay before me as the lines upon my open 
 palm, but now the way is no longer clear." 
 
 "I have said that it is closed to-night, so none 
 may enter. There is a password, but I alone know 
 
DAWN REVEALS A SECRET 143 
 
 it, and I may not tell it, friend of an evil man." 
 
 "There are other nights," whined the Burman, 
 "many of them in the passing of a year. When I 
 have the knowledge of thee, then may I seek and 
 find later." He rubbed his knees with an inde- 
 scribable gesture of mean cringing. 
 
 The Chinese boy drank from the bottle and 
 smacked his lips. 
 
 "Hear, then, thou convict," he said in a shriU 
 hectoring voice. "By the way of Paradise Street, 
 along the wharf and past the waste place where the 
 tram-line ends and the houses stand far apart. Of 
 the houses of commerce, I do not speak; of the mat 
 houses where the Coringyhis live, I do not speak, 
 but beyond them, open below to the water-snakes, 
 and built above into a secret place, is the house we 
 know of, but Leh Shin is not there for thee to-night, 
 as I have already spoken." 
 
 He felt in the pouch at his waist for a rank black 
 cigar, which he pushed into his mouth and lighted 
 with a sulphur match. 
 
 "Who fries the mud fish when he may eat roast 
 duck?" he said, with a harsh cackle that made the 
 Burman start and stare at him. 
 
 "Aie! Ate! I do not understand thy words." 
 The Burman's face grew blank and he went to the 
 door. 
 
 "Neither do you need to, son of a chained mon- 
 key," retorted the boy, full of strong liquor and 
 arrogance. "But I tell thee, I and my mate, Leh 
 Shin, hold more than money between the finger and 
 the thumb," — he pinched his forefinger against a 
 
144 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 mutilated thumb. "More than money, see, fool; 
 thou understandest nothing, thy brain is left along 
 with thy chains in the Island which is known imto 
 thee." 
 
 "Sleep well," said the Burman. "Sleep well, child 
 of the Heaven's, I understand thee not at all," and 
 with a limp shrug of his shoulders, he slid out of the 
 narrow door into the night. 
 
 Coryndon gave one glance at the sky; the dawn 
 was still far off, but in spite of this he ran up the 
 deserted colonnade and walked quickly down Para- 
 dise Street, which was still awake and would be 
 awake for hours. Once dear of the lessening crowd 
 and on to the wharf, he ran again; past the busi- 
 ness houses, past the long quarter where the Cor- 
 ingyhis and coolie-folk lived, and, lastly, with a slow, 
 lurking step, to the close vicinity of a house stand- 
 ing alone upon high supports. He skirted round 
 it, but to all appearances it was closed and empty, 
 and he sat down behind a clump of rough elephant- 
 grass and tucked his heels under him. 
 
 His original idea, on coming out, had been merely 
 to get into touch with Leh Shin, and make the way 
 clear for his coming to the small, empty house close 
 to the shop of the ineffectual curio dealer, and now 
 he knew, through his fine, sharp instinct, that he 
 was close upon the track of some mystery. It might 
 have nothing to do with the disappearance of the 
 Christian boy, Absalom, or it might be a thread 
 from the hidden loom, but, in any case, Coryndon 
 determined to wait and see what was going to hap- 
 pen. He was well used to long, waiting, and the 
 
DAWN REVEALS A SECRET 145 
 
 Oriental strain in his blood made it a matter of no 
 effort with him. Someone was hidden in the lonely 
 house, some man who paid heavily for the privacy 
 of the waterside opium den, and Coryndon was de- 
 termined to discover who that man was. 
 
 The night was fair and clear, and the murmur 
 of the tidal river gentle and soothing, and as he sat, 
 well hidden by the clump of grass, he went over the 
 events of the evening and thought of the face of 
 Leh Shin's assistant. Hartley had spoken of the 
 bestial creature in tones of disgust, but Hartley had 
 not seen him to the same peculiar advantage. Line 
 by line, Coryndon committed the face to his indel- 
 ible memory, looking at it again in the dark, and 
 brooding over it as a lover broods over the face of 
 the woman he loves', but from very different mo- 
 tives. He was assured that no cruelty or wicked- 
 ness that mortal brain could imagine would be be- 
 yond the act of this man, if opportunity offered, 
 and he was attracted by the psychological interest 
 offered to him in the study of such a mind. 
 
 The ripples whispered below him, and, far away, 
 he heard the chiming of a distant clock striking a 
 single note, but he did not stir ; he sat like a shadow, 
 his eyes on the house, that rose black, silent, and, 
 to all appearances, deserted, against the starry dark- 
 ness of the sky. He had got his facts clear, so far 
 as they went, and his mind wandered out with the 
 wash of the water, and the mystery of the river 
 flowed over him ; the silent causeway leading to the 
 sea, carrying the living on its bosom, and bearing 
 the dead beneath its brown, sucking flow, full of its 
 
146 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 own life, and eternally restless as the sea tides 
 ebbed and flowed, yet musical and wild and un- 
 changed by the hand of man. Coryndon loved mov- 
 ing waters, and he remembered that somewhere, 
 miles away from Mangadone, he had played along 
 a river bank, little better than the small native 
 children who played there now, and he saw the 
 green jungle-clearing, the red road, and the roof of 
 his father's bungalow, and he fancied he could hear 
 the cry of the paddy-birds, and the voices of the 
 water-men who came and went through the long, 
 eventless days. 
 
 Even while he thought, he never moved his eyes 
 from the house. Suddenly a light glimmered for a 
 moment behind a window, and he sat forward 
 quickly, forgetting his dream, and becoming Coryn- 
 don the tracker In the twinkling flash of a second. 
 The inmates of the house were stirring at last, and 
 Coryndon lay flat behind his clump of grass and 
 hardly breathed. 
 
 He could hear a door open softly, and, though It 
 was too dark to discern anything, he knew that 
 there was a man on the veranda, and that the man 
 slipped down the staircase, where he stood for a mo- 
 ment and peered about. He moved quietly up the 
 path and watched It for a few minutes, and then slid 
 back into the house again. Coryndon could hear 
 whispers and a low, growled response, and then an- 
 other figure appeared, a Sahib this time, by his white 
 clothes. He used no particular caution, and came 
 heavily down the staircase, that creaked under his 
 
DAWN REVEALS A SECRET 147 
 
 weight, and took the track by which Coryndon had 
 come. 
 
 Silhouetted against the sky, Coryndon saw the 
 head and neck of a Chinaman, and he turned his eyes 
 from the man on the path to watch this outline in- 
 tently; it was thin, spare and vulture-like. Evi- 
 dently Leh Shin was watching his departing guest 
 with some anxiety, for he peered and craned and 
 leaned out until Coryndon cursed him from where 
 he lay, not daring to move until he had gone. 
 
 At last the silhouette was withdrawn and the 
 Chinaman went back into the house. He had hardly 
 done so when Coryndon was on his feet, running 
 hard. He ran lightly and gained the road just as 
 the man he followed turned the comer by Wharf 
 Street and plodded on steadily. In the darkness of 
 the night there are no shadows thrown, but this man 
 had a shadow as faithful as the one he knew so well 
 and that wAs his companion from sunrise to sunset, 
 and close after him the poor, nameless Burman fol- 
 lowed step for step through the long path that ended 
 at the house af Joicey the Banker. 
 
 Coryndon watched him go in, heard him curse 
 the Durwan, and then he ran once more, because the 
 stars were growing pale and time was precious. He 
 was weary and tired when he crept into the com- 
 pound outside the sleeping bungalow on the hill-rise, 
 and he stood at the gate and gave a low, clear cry, 
 the cry of a waking bird, and a few minutes after- 
 wards Coryndon followed Joicey's example and 
 cursed the Durwan, kicking him as he lay snoring 
 on his blanket. 
 
148 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "Open the door, you swine," he said in the angry 
 voice of a belated reveller, "and don't wake the 
 house with that noise." 
 
 Even when he was in his room and delivered hun- 
 self over to the ministrations of Shiraz, he did not 
 go to bed. He had something to think over. He 
 knew that he had established the connection between 
 Joicey the Banker and the spare, gaunt Chinaman 
 who kept a shop for miscellaneous wares in the dark 
 colonnade beyond Paradise Street. Joicey had a 
 short memory: he had forgotten whether he had met 
 the Rev. Francis Heath on the night of the 29th of 
 July, and had imagined that he was not there, that 
 he was away from Mangadone; and as Coryndon 
 dropped off to sleep, he felt entirely convinced that, 
 if necessary, he could help Joicey's memory very 
 considerably. 
 
XIV 
 
 TELLS HOW SHIRAZ, THE PUNJABI, ADMITTED THE 
 FRAILTIES OF ORDINARY HUMANITY, AND HOW 
 CORYNDON ATTENDED AFTERNOON SERVICE AND 
 CONSIDERED THE VEXED QUESTION OF TEMPERA- 
 MENT. 
 
 THE day following Coryndon's vigil outside the 
 lonely house by the river was dull and grey, 
 with a woolly sky and a tepid stillness that hung like 
 a tangible weight in the air. Its drowsiness affected 
 even the native quarter, but it in no way lessened 
 the bustle of preparations for departure on the part 
 of Coryndon, who ordered Shiraz to pack enough 
 clothes for a short journey, and to hold himself in 
 readiness to leave with his master shortly after 
 sunrise the following day. His master also gave 
 him leave to go to the Bazaar and return at his 
 own discretion, as he was going out with Hartley 
 Sahib. 
 
 It was about noon, when the sun had struggled 
 clear of the heavy clouds, that Shiraz found him- 
 self in the dark colonnade locking an empty house 
 behind him with his own key, and, being a stately, 
 red-bearded follower of the Prophet, with a gen- 
 eral appearance of wealth and dignity, he walked 
 slowly until he came to the doorway of Leh Shin's 
 
 149 
 
ISO THE POINTING MAN 
 
 shop. His step caused the Chinaman to look up 
 from the string bed where he lay, gaunt, yellow and 
 unsavoury, his dark clothes contrasting with the 
 flowing white garments of the venerable man who 
 regarded him through his spectacles. 
 
 "The hand of Allah has led me to this place," 
 said Shiraz in his low, reflective tones. "I seek 
 for a little prayer-mat and a few bowls of brass 
 for my food; likewise, a bed for myself, and a bed 
 of lesser value for my companion. Hast thou these 
 things, Leh Shin?" 
 
 I Leh Shin went into his back premises and returned 
 with the bowls and the prayer-mat. 
 
 "The bed for thyself, O Haj, and the bed of 
 lesser value for thy friend, I shall make shift to pro- 
 cure. Presently I will send my assistant, the eyes of 
 my encroaching age, to bring what you need." 
 
 "It is well," said Shiraz, who was seated on a low 
 stool near the door, and who looked with contem- 
 plative eyes into the shop. 
 
 Leh Shin huddled himself on to the string couch 
 again, and the slow process of bargain-driving be- 
 gan. Pice by pice they argued the question, and at 
 last Shiraz produced a handful of small coin, which 
 passed from him to the Chinaman. 
 
 "I had already heard of thee," said Leh Shin, 
 scratching his loose sleeves with his long, claw-like 
 fingers. "But thy friend, the Burman, who spoke 
 beforehand of thy coming, and who still recalls the 
 mixture of his opium pipe, I cannot remember." He 
 hunched his shoulders. "Yet even that is not 
 strange. My house by the river is a house of many 
 
CORYNDON ATTENDS SERVICE 151 
 
 faces, yet all who dream wear the same face in the 
 end," his voice crooned monotonously. "All in the 
 end, from living in the world of visions, become the 
 same." 
 
 Shiraz bowed his head with grave courtesy. 
 
 "It was also told to me that you served a rich 
 master and have stored up wealth." 
 
 "The way of honesty is never the path to 
 wealth," responded Shiraz, In tones of reproof. 
 "So it is written in the Koran." 
 
 Leh Shin accepted the ambiguous reply with an 
 unmoved face. 
 
 "Thy friend is under the hand of devils?" 
 
 He put the remark as an idle question. 
 
 "He is tormented," replied Shiraz, pulling at his 
 beard. "He is much driven by thoughts of evil, 
 committed, such is his dream, by another than him- 
 self; and yet the Sirkar hath said that the crime was 
 his own. The ways of Allah are veiled, and Mah 
 Myo is without doubt no longer reasonable; yet he 
 is my friend, and doth greatly profit thereby." 
 
 "Ah, ah," said the Chinaman, placing a hubble- 
 bubble before his guest, who condescended to shut 
 the mouthpiece in under his long moustache, while 
 he sat silently for nearly half an hour. 
 
 "Dost thou sell beautiful things, Leh Shin?" he 
 asked. "I have a gift to bestow, and my mind 
 troubles me. The Lady Sahib of my late master 
 suffered misfortune. She was robbed by some un- 
 known son of a jackal, and thereby lost jewels, the 
 value of which was said to be great, though I know 
 not of the value of such things." 
 
152 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 Leh Shin curled his bare toes on the edge of his 
 bed and looked at them with a great appearance of 
 interest. 
 
 "Was the thief taken, O son of a Prophet?" 
 
 "He was not. I have cried in the veranda, to 
 see the Lady Sahib's sorrow, and I have also prayed 
 and made many offerings at the Mosque, but the 
 thief escaped. Now that my service with the Lord 
 Sahib is finished, and as he has assisted my poverty 
 with small gifts, I would like to make a present to 
 the Lady Sahib. Some trifling thing, costing a 
 small sum in rupees, for her grief was indeed great, 
 and it may avail to console her sorrow." 
 
 "For which sorrow thou, also, wept in the 
 veranda," added Leh Shin. 
 
 "The Lady Sahib had many bowls of lacquer, 
 some green, some red, some spotted like the back 
 of a poison snake, but she lacked a golden bowl, 
 and, should I be able to procure one for a moderate 
 price, it would add greatly to her pleasure in re- 
 membering her servant, for, says not the Wise One, 
 *a gift is a small thing, but the hand that holds it 
 may not be raised to smite.' " 
 
 Shiraz, all the time he was speaking, had regarded 
 the Chinaman from behind his respectable gold- 
 rimmed spectacles, and he noticed that Leh Shin did 
 not seem to care for the subject of lacquer, for his 
 face darkened and he stopped scratching. 
 
 "I deal not in lacquer," he said quickly. "Neither 
 touch thou the accursed thing, O Shiraz. Leave it 
 to Mhtoon Pah, who is a sorcerer and whose lies 
 mount as high as the topmost pinnacle of the Pa- 
 
CORYNDON ATTENDS SERVICE 153 
 
 goda." The Chinaman's lips drew back from his 
 teeth, and he snarled like a dog. "I will not speak 
 of him to thee, but I would that the face of Mhtoon 
 Pah was under my heel, and his eyeballs under my 
 thumbs." 
 
 "Yet this golden bowl has been in my thought," 
 the voice of Shiraz flowed on evenly. "And I said 
 that here, in Mangadone, I might find such an one. 
 Thou art sure that lacquer is accursed to thine eyes, 
 Leh Shin ? That thou hast not such a bowl by thee, 
 neither that thy assistant, when he seeks the bed 
 for myself and the lesser bed for my friend, could 
 not look craftily into the shop of this merchant, and 
 ask the price as he passeth, if so be that Mhtoon 
 Pah has such a bowl to sell?" 
 
 Leh Shin spat ferociously. 
 
 "There was a bowl, a bowl such as you describe, 
 O servant of Kings, and I thought to procure it, for 
 word was brought me that Mhtoon Pah had need 
 of It, and I desired to hold it before him and with- 
 draw it again, and to inspire his covetousness and 
 rage and then to sell it from my own hand, but he 
 leagues with devils and his power Is great, for, be- 
 hold, Honourable Haj, the bowl that was mine was 
 lost by the man from the seas who was about to sell 
 it to me. Lost, in all truth, and after the lapse of 
 many days, Mhtoon Pah had it in his shop, and 
 sold It to the Lady Sahib." 
 
 "The hands of a man of wealth are more than 
 two," said Shiraz oracularly. 
 
 "Nay, not so, for all thy learning, Pilgrim from 
 the Shrine of Mahomet. The hands of this mer- 
 
154 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 chant, at the time I speak, were as my hands, or 
 thine," he held out his claws and snatched at the 
 air as though it was his enemy's throat. "For his 
 boy, his assistant, the Christian Absalom, who served 
 him well, and whom Mhtoon Pah fed upon sweets 
 from the vendor's stall, was suddenly taken from 
 him, and has vanished, like the smoke of an opium 
 pipe." 
 
 Shiraz expressed wonder, and agreed with Leh 
 Shin that sorcery had been used, shaking his head 
 gravely and at length rising to his feet. 
 
 "The shadows lengthen and the hour of prayer 
 draws near. It is time for the follower of the 
 Prophet to give a poor man's alms at the gate of 
 the Mosque, and to pray and praise," he said. 
 "Thy assistant tarries, Leh Shin; let him go forth 
 with speed and place my purchase in thy keeping, 
 since I met thee in a happy hour, and shall return 
 upon the morrow from the Serai, where it is Al- 
 lah's will that I pass the night in peace." 
 
 Walking with a slow, regular pace, he left the 
 native quarter, and taking a tram, got out on the 
 road below the bungalow where Hartley's servant 
 waited in the veranda. 
 
 "Thy Sahib has cursed thy beard and thine age, 
 and says that he will replace thee with a younger 
 man if thy dealings in the Bazaar are of such long 
 duration." 
 
 "Peace, owl," said Shiraz. "The Sahib can no 
 more travel without my assistance than a babe of 
 one day without his mother. Presently, when the 
 Sahib has drunk a peg, he will return to reason." 
 
CORYNDON ATTENDS SERVICE 155 
 
 "The Sahib is not within; he has but now gone 
 out once more, asking from my Sahib for the loan 
 of a prayer-book. Doubtless, there is a Tamasha 
 at the 'Kerfedril,' and Coryndon Sahib goes thither 
 to pray." 
 
 "I shall place the buttons in his shirt, and recover 
 an eight-anna piece from the floor, which the mas- 
 ter dropped yesterday, to deliver to him when he 
 shall return. Seek to be honest in thy youth, my 
 son, for in later life it will repay thee." 
 
 Hartley's boy had not been mistaken when he 
 heard Coryndon ask for a prayer-book and saw 
 him go out on foot. The small persistent bell out- 
 side St. Jude's Church was ringing with desperate 
 energy to collect any worshippers who might feel 
 inclined to assemble there for evensong, and the 
 worshippers when collected under the tin roof num- 
 bered nearly a dozen. 
 
 It was a bare, barn-like Church, for the wealth 
 of the Cantonment had flowed in the direction of 
 the Cathedral. The punkah mats flapped lan- 
 guidly, and the lower part of the church was dark, 
 only the chancel being lighted with ungainly punkah- 
 proof lamps, and the two altar candles that threw 
 their gleam on a plain gold cross, guttered in the 
 heat. A strip of cocoa-nut matting lay along the 
 aisle, and the chancel and altar steps were covered 
 in sad, faded red. The organist did not attend ex- 
 cept on Sundays or Feast Days, and the service was 
 plain, conducted throughout by the Rev. Francis 
 Heath. 
 
 Coryndon took a seat about half-way up the nave, 
 
156 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 and when Heath came into the church, he watched 
 him with interest. He liked to watch a man, whom 
 it was his business to study, without being disturbed, 
 and Heath^s face in profile, as he knelt at the read- 
 ing desk, or in full sight as he stood to read the les- 
 son, attracted the fixed gaze of, at least, one mem- 
 ber of the small congregation. There was no ser- 
 mon and the service was short, and as he sat quietly 
 in his place, Coryndon wondered what frenzied mo- 
 ment of fear or despair could have driven this man 
 into the company of Joicey and Mrs. Draycott 
 Wilder, unconscious perhaps of their connection with 
 him, but linked nevertheless by an invisible thread 
 that wound around them all. 
 
 Beyond the fact that he had seen Mrs. Wilder, 
 he had not taken her under the close observation 
 of his mental microscope. She stood on one side 
 until such time as he should have need to probe into 
 her reasons for silence, and he wondered if Hart- 
 ley was right, and if, by chance, the earnest face of 
 the clergyman, with its burning, stricken eyes, had 
 appealed to her sympathy. Could it be so, he asked 
 himself once or twice, but the immediate question 
 was the one that Coryndon gave his mind to answer, 
 and just then he was forming an impression of the 
 Rev. Francis Heath. 
 
 He looked at his hands, at his thin neck, at the 
 hollows in his cheeks and the emotional quiver at 
 the comer of his mouth, and he knew the man was 
 a fanatic, a civilized fanatic, but desperately and 
 even horribly in earnest. A believer in torment, a 
 man who held the vigorous faith that makes for 
 
CORYNDON ATTENDS SERVICE 157 
 
 martyrdom and can also pile woqd for the fires that 
 bum the bodies of others for the eventual welfare 
 of their souls. Unquestionably, the Rev. Francis 
 Heath was a man not to be judged by an average 
 inch rule, and Coryndon thought over him as he lis- 
 tened to his voice and watched his strained, tempest- 
 tossed face. Whether he was involved in the dis- 
 appearance of Absalom or not, he recognized that 
 Heath was a strong man, and that his ill-balanced 
 force would need very little to make him a violent 
 man. It surprised him less to think that Hartley 
 attached suspicion to the Rector of St, Jude's than 
 it had at first, and he left the church with a very clear 
 impression of the clerg5Tiian put carefully away be- 
 side his appreciation of Leh Shin's assistant. He 
 had caught just a glimpse of the personality of the 
 man, and was busy building it up bit by bit, working 
 out his idea by first trying to fathom the tempera- 
 ment that dwelt in the spare body and drove and 
 wore him hour after hour. 
 
 The Rev. Francis Heath had paid some China- 
 man to keep silence, but though he might pay a 
 Chinaman, he could do nothing with his own con- 
 science, and it was with a hidden adversary that he 
 wrestled day and night. Coryndon's face was piti- 
 less as the face of a vivisecting surgeon. Had she 
 known of his mission, Mrs. Wilder might have 
 beaten her beautiful head on the stones under his 
 feet, and she would have gained nothing whatever 
 of concession or mercy. 
 
 Atkins and the Barrister were dining with Hart- 
 ley that night, and as Coryndon never cared to hurry 
 
158 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 over his dressing, he went at once to his room and 
 called Shiraz. 
 
 "All Is well, my Master," said Shiraz, in a low 
 voice. "But it would be wise if the Master were 
 to curse his servant In a loud voice, since it Is ex- 
 pected that he will do so, and the monkey-folk in 
 the servants' quarter listen without, concealing their 
 pleasure In the Sahib's wrath." 
 
 When the proceedings terminated and Coryndon 
 had accepted his servant's long excuse for his delay, 
 the doors were closed, Shiraz having first gone out 
 to shake his fist at Hartley's boy. 
 
 "Thus much have I discovered. Lord Sahib," said 
 Shiraz, when he had explained that the house was 
 In readiness and the necessary furniture bought and 
 stored temporarily at the shop of Leh Shin, the 
 Chinaman. "There is an old hate between these 
 two men, he of the devil shop, and the Chinaman, 
 a hate as old as rust that eats Into an Iron bar." 
 
 Coryndon lay bade in his chair and listened with- 
 out remark. 
 
 "Among many lies told unto me, that Is true; and 
 again, among many lies, it is also true that he had 
 not, neither did he ever possess, the gold lacquer 
 bowl, on the subject of which my Master bade me 
 question him. He knows not how Mhtoon Pah 
 found It, but he believes that it was through a sor- 
 cery he practised, for the man is as full of evil as 
 the chatti lifted from the brink of the well is full of 
 water." 
 
 Coryndon smiled and glanced at Shiraz. 
 
 "And you think so also, grandson of a Tucktoo, 
 
CORYNDON ATTENDS SERVICE 159 
 
 for though you are old, your white hairs bring you 
 no wisdom." 
 
 "I am the Sahib's servant, but who knoweth the 
 ways of devils, since their footprints cannot be seen, 
 neither upon the sand of the desert nor in the snows 
 of the great hills?" 
 
 "Did he speak of Absalom?" 
 
 "He told me, Protector of the Poor, that the 
 boy, though of Christian caste, was to Mhtoon Pah 
 as the apple of his eye, and that he fed him upon 
 sweets from the vendor's stall. Let it be said, for 
 thy wisdom to unravel, that therefore Leh Shin felt 
 mirth in his mind, knowing that the heart of his foe 
 was wrung as the Dhobie wrings the soiled gar- 
 ment." 
 
 Shiraz fell silent and looked up from the floor at 
 the face of his master, who got up and stretched 
 himself. 
 
 "Is my bath ready, Shiraz?" 
 
 "All is prepared, though the pant walla, a worker 
 of iniquity, steals the wood for his own burning; 
 therefore, the water is not hot, and ill is done to the 
 good name of Hartley Sahib's house." 
 
 When he was dressed he strolled into the draw- 
 ing-room, and sat down at the piano, playing softly 
 until Hartley came in. I 
 
 "Shall you be away long, do you suppose?" he 
 asked, looking with interest at Coryndon's smooth, 
 black head. 
 
 "I may be, but it is impossible to tell. If I want 
 you, I will send a message by Shiraz." 
 
 The dinner passed off without incident, and not 
 
i6o THE POINTING MAN 
 
 once did Coryndon open the secret door of his mind, 
 to add to the strange store of facts he had gathered 
 there. He wanted nothing from Atkins, who knew 
 less of the Rev. Francis Heath than he did him- 
 self, and he had to sustain his role of ignorance of 
 the country. The two men stayed late, and it 
 seemed to Coryndon that when men talk they do 
 more than talk, they tell many things unconsciously. 
 
 Perhaps, if people realized, as Coryndon real- 
 ized, the value of restrained speech, we should know 
 less of our neighbours' follies and weaknesses than 
 we do. There was a noticeable absence of inter- 
 est in what anyone else had to say. Atkins had his 
 own foible, Fitzgibbon his, and Hartley, who knew 
 more of the ways of men, a more interesting, but 
 not less egoistic platform from which he desired to 
 speaL They seemed to stalk naked and unashamed 
 before the eyes of the one man who never gave a 
 definite opinion, and who never asserted his own 
 theories or urged his own philosophy of life. 
 
 Coryndon listened because it amused him faintly, 
 but he was glad when the party broke up and they 
 left. What a planet of words it was, he thought, 
 as he sat in his room and reflected over the day. 
 Words that ought to carry value and weight, but 
 were treated like so many loose pebbles cast into 
 void space; and he wondered as he thought of it; 
 and from wondering at the wordy, noisy world in 
 which he found himself, he went on to wonder at 
 the greater silence that was so much more powerful 
 than words. "The value of mystery," was the 
 phrase that presented itself to his mind. 
 
CORYNDON ATTENDS SERVICE i6i 
 
 During the evening, three men had enjoyed all 
 the pleasure of self -betrayal, and, from the place 
 where he stood, unable ever to express anything of 
 his own nature in easy speech, he wondered at them, 
 with almost childlike astonishment. Fitzgibbon, 
 garrulous and loose of tongue, Atkins, precise and 
 easily heated to wrath, conscious of some hidden 
 fear that his dignity was not suiEciently respected, 
 and Hartley, who had something to say, but who 
 oversaid it, losing grip because of his very insistence. 
 Not one of them understood the value of reserve, 
 and all alike strove to proclaim themselves in speech^ 
 not knowing that speech is an unsound vehicle for the 
 unwary, and that personality disowns it as a medium. 
 
 Out of the mouth of a man comes his own con- 
 demnation: let him prosper who remembers this 
 truth. The value of mystery, the value of silence, 
 and above all things, the supreme value of a tongue 
 that is a servant and not a master; Coryndon con- 
 sidered these values and wondered again at the gar- 
 rulity of men. Talk, the fluid, ineffectual force that 
 fills the world with noise, that kills illusions and be- 
 trays ev^ry latent weakness; surely the high gods 
 laughed when they put a tongue in the mouth of 
 man. He pinched his lips together and his eyes 
 lighted with a passing smile of mirth. 
 
 "In Burma, there are no clappers to the bells," 
 he said to himself. "Each man must strike hard Be- 
 fore soimd answers to his hand, and truly it is well 
 to think of this at times." And, still amused by 
 the fleeting memory of the evening, he went to bed 
 and slept. 
 
XV 
 
 IN WHICH THE FURTHERING OF A STRANGE COM- 
 RADESHIP IS CONTINUED, AND A BEGGAR FROM 
 AMRITZAR CRIES IN THE STREETS OF MANGADONE 
 
 TRADE was slack in the shop of Leh Shin, 
 the Chinaman. He had sat in the odorous 
 gloom and done little else than feel his arms and 
 rub his legs, for the greater part of the day. His 
 new acquaintance, Shiraz, had taken over posses- 
 sion of his goods, scrutinizing them with care before 
 he did so, in case the brass pots had been exchanged 
 in the night for inferior pots of smaller circumfer- 
 ence, and in the end he had departed into his own 
 rat-burrow, two doors up the street, where his friend 
 the Burman was already established in a gloomy 
 comer. Leh Shin heard of this through his assist- 
 ant, who had followed the coolie into the house, and 
 investigated the premises as he stood about, with 
 offers of assistance for his excuse. 
 
 "They have naught with them, save only a box 
 that has no lock upon it, and also the boxes bought 
 from thy shop, Leh Shin, but these are empty, for I 
 looked closely, when they talked in the hither room, 
 where they are minded to live. Jewels, didst thou 
 say? Then that fox with the red beard has sold them 
 and the money is stored in some place of security." 
 
 162 
 
A BEGGAR CRIES IN THE STREETS 163 
 
 "Ah, ah," said the Chinaman, his eyes dull and 
 fixed. 
 
 "And 'ah, ah' to thee," retorted the assistant, who 
 found the response lacking in interest. "I would I 
 knew where it was hidden." 
 
 With a sudden change of manner he squatted near 
 the ear of Leh Shin and talked in a soft whisper. 
 
 "Is not the time ripe, O wise old man, is not the 
 hour come when thou mayst go to the house of the 
 white Sahib and demand a piece for closed lips?" 
 
 He pursed up his small mouth and pointed at it. 
 
 Leh Shin shook his head. 
 
 "I am already paid, and I will not demand fur- 
 ther, lest he, whom we know of, come no more. 
 Drive not the spent of strength; since the price is 
 sufficient, I may not demand more, lest I sin in so 
 doing." 
 
 The assistant glared at him with angry eyes. 
 
 "Fool, and thrice fool," he muttered under his 
 breath, but Leh Shin did not heed him, and did not 
 even appear to hear what he said. For a long time 
 the old Chinaman seemed wrapped in his thought, 
 and at last he got up, and leaving the shop, went 
 towards the principal Joss House that faced the 
 river. 
 
 Coryndon had chosen the empty shop in the Colon- 
 nade for two reasons. It was near Leh Shin, and 
 near the strange assistant, who interested him nearly 
 as much as Leh Shin himself, and also it had the 
 additional advantage of being the last house in 
 the block. A narrow alley full of refuse of every 
 description lay between it and the next block, and 
 
i64 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 the rickety house had doors that opened to the front, 
 and to the side, and by way of a dark lane directly 
 from the back, making ingress or egress a matter 
 of wide choice. 
 
 The shop front was shuttered, and left to the rats 
 and cockroaches, and up a flight of decrepit and 
 shaky stairs, Shiraz had made what shift he could 
 to provide comfort for his master in the least dilapi- 
 dated room in the house. The walls were thin, and 
 the plaster of the low ceiling was smoke-grimed and 
 dirty. The "bed of lesser value" was stored away 
 in the garret that lay beyond, and the prayer-mat 
 was placed alongside the toil-worn wooden charpoy, 
 that was at least fairly clean and had all four legs 
 intact; and under this bed, the box that held a strange 
 assortment of clothing was put safely away. At the 
 bottom of another box, one of those bought by 
 Coryndon himself from Leh Sin's assistant, Shiraz 
 had laid a suit of tussore silk, a few shirts and col- 
 lars, and anything that his master might require if 
 he wished to revisit those "glimpses of the moon" in 
 the Cantonments; for Shiraz neglected nothing, and 
 had a genius for detail. 
 
 A hurricane lamp, that threw impartial light 
 upon all sides, stood on a round table, and lighted 
 the small room, and at one cdmer Cor5midon sat, 
 clad in his Burmese loongyi and white coat, thinking, 
 his chin on his folded hands. He had taught him- 
 self to think without paper or pens, and to record 
 his impressions with the same diligent care as though 
 he wrote them upon paper. He could command his 
 thoughts, and direct them towards one end and one 
 
A BEGGAR CRIES IN THE STREETS 165 
 
 issue, and he believed that notes were an abomina- 
 tion, and that, in his Service, memory was the only 
 safe recorder of progress. 
 
 He was fully aware that he was hunting what 
 might well be a cold line, and he thought per- 
 sistently of Leh Shin, putting the other possible issues 
 upon one side. Hartley had allowed himself to be 
 dominated by a predisposition to account for every- 
 thing through Heath, and Coryndon warned himself 
 against falling into the same snare with Leh Shin. 
 He thought of the Chinaman's shop, and he knew 
 that it was built on the same plan as his own dwell- 
 ing. There was no basement, and hardly any room 
 beyond the open ground-floor apartment and the 
 two upper rooms. Nowhere, in fact, to conceal 
 anything; and its thin walls could not contain a single 
 cry for help or prayer for mercy. It was possible 
 to have drugged the boy and smothered him as he 
 lay unconscious, but unless the murderers had chosen 
 this method, Absalom could not have met his end in 
 the Chinaman's shop. There remained the house 
 by the river to investigate, and there remained hours 
 and days, and possibly weeks, of close watching, 
 that might reveal some tiny clue, and for that Coryn- 
 don was determined to wait and watch until it lay 
 in the hollow of his palm. 
 
 Acting the part of a man more or less astray in 
 his wits, he wandered out either late or early, with 
 the vague, aimless step of a dreamer, and stood 
 about, staring vacantly. Leh Shin's shop attracted 
 him, and he would squat on the ground either just 
 outside the narrow entrance, or just within, and, 
 
i66 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 with flaccid, dropping mouth, stare at the hanging 
 array of secondhand clothes, making himself a 
 source of endless entertainment for the boy, who 
 found him easy to annoy and distress, and conse- 
 quently practised upon him with unwearying plea- 
 sure. 
 
 "Wise one, where are the jewels stolen by thy 
 Master?" he asked, throwing the dregs of his drink 
 over the Burman's bare feet. 
 
 "Jewels, jewels? Nay, friend, jewels are for the 
 rich ; for the Raj and the Prince ; I have never seen 
 one to hold in my hand and to consider closely. 
 As for the Punjabi, he is no master of mine. I did 
 him a service — nay, I have forgotten what the serv- 
 ice was, as I forget all things, save only the guilt of 
 the evil man, once my friend." 
 
 "Tell me once more thy story." 
 
 The Burman cowered down and whimpered. 
 
 "Since I put it into speech for thy ears, my trouble 
 of mind has grown, like moonlight in the mist. I 
 may not speak it again. They, yonder, would hear," 
 he pointed at the clothes, that flapped a little in the 
 hot, heavy wind that came in strong with the scents 
 and smells of the Bazaar. 
 
 "Oh, oh," said the boy, with a crackling laugh. 
 "I will tell them not to speak or stir. I have power 
 over them, and they shall repeat nothing. Tell me 
 the story, fool, or I will drive thee from thy comer, 
 and the children shall throw mud upon thee in the 
 streets." 
 
 Again and again the drama was repeated, and as 
 Coryndon became part of the day's amusement to 
 
A BEGGAR CRIES IN THE STREETS 167 
 
 Leh Shin's assistant, he grew to know exactly what 
 both the boy and his master did during the hours 
 of the day. Unknown and unsuspected, the Burman 
 went in and out as they went in and out. He ap- 
 peared at the house by the river, he sat with his legs 
 dangling over the drop from the Colonnade into 
 the streets, and he wore out the hours in idleness, 
 the dust of the Bazaar powdering his hair and 
 griming his face, but behind his vacant eyes, his 
 quick brain was alive and burning, and he felt after 
 Leh Shin with invisible hands. 
 
 Coryndon was never at the mercy of one idea 
 only, and he began to see, very soon after he had 
 investigated the two houses — the ramshackle shop 
 and the riverside den — ^that if he intended to pro- 
 gress he could not afford to sit in the street and drink 
 in the cafe opposite Leh Shin's dwelling for an in- 
 terminable space of weeks. He had limitless pa- 
 tience, but he was quick of action, and saw any flaw 
 in his own system as soon as a flaw appeared. Leh 
 Shin was suspicious, and took precautions when he 
 went out at night, and this in itself made it danger- 
 ous to be continually upon his heels in a character 
 he knew and could recognize. So long as there was 
 anything to gain by remaining in his Burmese cloth- 
 ing, Coryndon used it, avoiding the Chinaman and 
 cultivating the society of his assistant, but he soon 
 began to realize that if he were to follow as closely 
 as he desired, he could not do so in his present dis- 
 guise. 
 
 All day he sat watching the crowded street, shiv- 
 ering, though the sun was warm, and breaking his 
 
i68 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 silence with complaints that the fever was upon him, 
 and that he was sick, and that he could not eat. He 
 whimpered and whined so persistently that the as- 
 sistant drove him off, for he feared infection, and 
 fancied he might be sickening for the plague. 
 
 "Neither come thou hither, until thou art fully 
 recovered," he added, "lest I use my force upon 
 thee." 
 
 If a certain beggar who had sat for a whole month 
 outside the Golden Temple at Amritzar was to 
 become reincarnated in the person of the idiot Bur- 
 man, the Burman must have a reason to offer to the 
 inquisitive for his temporary absence. Sickness is 
 sudden and active in the streets of any Bazaar, and 
 when Shiraz learnt that he was to keep within the 
 house and report the various stages of the fever of 
 his friend, he salaamed and drew out the battered 
 box from under the bed, and folded away the loongyi 
 and coat with care. 
 
 Coryndon explained his plan of coming and going 
 when the streets were silent, and when he could do 
 so without being noticed. If he came in the day- 
 time and asked for alms, Shiraz was to open and 
 call him in to receive food, but he would only do this 
 in great emergency, as the beggar did not wish to 
 establish any connection with the Punjabi. If, on 
 the other hand, it was a matter of necessity for the 
 Burman to reappear, Shiraz was to walk along the 
 street and bestow alms in the beggar's bowl ; and on 
 the first opportunity Coryndon would return and 
 make the necessary change. The first difficulty was 
 to get out of the house, and to be in the street by 
 
I A BEGGAR CRIES IN THE STREETS 169 
 
 twilight, when the close operation of watching would 
 have to begin. 
 
 "The doors of the merciful are ever open to the 
 poor; yet there is great danger in going out by the 
 way of the Bazaar." 
 
 "There is a closed door at the back that I have 
 well prepared," said Coryndon, pulling a bit of 
 sacking over his bent shoulders. "Remember that 
 an oiled hinge opens like the mouth of a wise man." 
 
 The addition of one to the brotherhood of va- 
 grancy that is part of every Eastern Bazaar calls 
 the attention of no one, and being a newcomer, 
 Coryndon contented himself with accepting a pitch 
 in a district where alms were difficult to obtain and 
 small in value, but his humility did not keep him 
 there long, and he made a place for himself at the 
 top of Paradise Street, in the shadow of an arched 
 doorway, where a house with carved shutters and 
 horseshoe windows was slowly mouldering through 
 the first stages of decay. From here he could see 
 down the Colonnade, and also watch the shop of 
 Mhtoon Pah, as he alternately cursed or blessed the 
 passers, according to their gifts or their apathy. 
 
 The heavy, slouching figure of the assistant went 
 by to take up his master's place in the waterside 
 house, and the beggar wasted no time in glancing 
 after him. He knew his destination, and had no 
 need to trouTjle about the ungainly, walloping crea- 
 ture, who kicked him as he passed. It was fresh, 
 out in the street, and pleasant, and in spite of his 
 musty rags and his hidden face, Coryndon enjoyed 
 the change of occupation. 
 
I70 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 He saw the place much as it had been on the 
 evening of July the 29th. Mhtoon Pah came out 
 and sat on his chair, smoking a cheroot, and ob- 
 serving the street. In a good humour it would ap- 
 pear, for when the beggar cringed past and sent 
 up his plea for assistance, the curio dealer felt in his 
 pouched waist-sash and threw him a coin. 
 
 "Be it requited to thee in thy next life, O Shrine- 
 builder," murmured the beggar, and he squatted 
 down on the ground a little further on. 
 
 He saw Shiraz come out and stand at the door, 
 preparatory to setting forth tb the Mosque. Saw 
 him lock it carefully and proceed slowly and with 
 great dignity through the crowd. He passed close 
 to the beggar, but took no notice of him, lifting his 
 garments lest they should touch him, and for this 
 the beggar cursed him, to the entertainment of those 
 who listened. 
 
 Blue shadows like wraiths of smoke enfolded the 
 street at the far end, and the clatter and noise grew 
 stronger as the houses filled after the day of toil. 
 In one of the prosperous dwellings a gramophone 
 was set near the window, and the song floated out 
 over the street, the music-hall chorus from the mer- 
 chant's house mingled in with the cry of vendors 
 hawking late wares at cheap prices. 
 
 A hundred years ago, except for the gramophone 
 and an occasional gharry, the street might have been 
 the same. The same amber light that held only a 
 short while after sunset, the same blue misty shadows, 
 the same concourse of colour and caste, the same 
 
A BEGGAR CRIES IN THE STREETS 171 
 
 talk pf food, and the same idle, loitering and inqui- 
 sitive crowd. 
 
 Coryndon watched it with eyes of love. Half of 
 his nature belonged to this place and was part of it. 
 He understood their idleness, their small pleasures, 
 their kindness and their cruelty; and though the 
 dominance of the white race was strongest in him, 
 he loved these half-brothers of his because he under- 
 stood them. 
 
 Two young Hypongyi came past where he sat, and 
 as they had nothing else to give, gave him their bless- 
 ing and a look of pity. 
 
 "He did ill in his former life," said the elder of 
 the two. "The balance is adjusted thus, and only 
 thus." 
 
 "Great is the justice of the Law," replied the 
 other, rubbing his shaven crown reflectively, and 
 then some noise of music or laughter attracted 
 them and they ran up the street to see what it might 
 be, for they were young, and there was no reason 
 why they should not enjoy simple pleasures. 
 
 Coryndon knew that Leh Shin would certainly go 
 to the Joss House that night, and he knew that upon 
 these occasions the Chinaman prayed long, and 
 that it would be dark before he entered the place of 
 worship. For another hour his time was free to 
 watch the street, and without attaching any particu- 
 lar consequence to the fact, he saw Mhtoon Pah 
 get up, rub his hands on his knees and lift his chair 
 inside the door, which he closed with a noise of 
 dragging chains and creaking bolts. 
 
 Slowly the last gleam withdrew, and the dust lost 
 
173 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 its effect of amber, and the trees grew dark, and 
 little whispering winds clapped the palm leaves one 
 on another with a dry, barking sound. Children 
 still screamed and played, and dogs yelped and of- 
 fered to show fight, and still people oh foot came and 
 went, and the dusk drew down a veil and the greater 
 noise subsided into a lower key. 
 
 The beggar was no longer there, his place was 
 empty and he had gone. 
 
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 IMMOR- 
 TALS DWELL. 
 
 OF all the savage desires that riot in the hearts 
 of men, the lust of revenge is probably the 
 strongest. Civilization has done its best to control 
 and curb wild impulse ; but as long as a cruel wrong 
 rankles, or a fierce longing to square an old account 
 remains, there will be hands thrust out to take the 
 naked sword of the Lord into their own finite grasp, 
 and there will be men who will be content to pay 
 the price so that they may see the desire of their 
 eyes. 
 
 The Oriental has above the white races an illimit- 
 able patience in awaiting his hour for retribution, 
 for the heart of the East does not forget and can 
 hold a purpose silently through the dust-blown, 
 sunlit years, waiting for the dawn of the appointed 
 day. 
 
 When Leh Shin set out towards the Joss House, 
 he was repeating a procedure that had become con- 
 stant with him of late. He knew that a Joss was 
 revengeful and terrible in matters of hate, there- 
 fore his prayer would be understood in the strange 
 
 173 
 
174 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 region of power where the Great Ones dwelt. His 
 religion was a mixture of the teachings of Buddha, 
 Confucius, and Shinto, for long absence from his 
 own country and constant association with the Bur- 
 mese and Japanese had blended and confused the 
 original belief that he had learnt in far-away Canton. 
 To this basis was added the grossest form of super- 
 stition, and the wildest fancies of a brain muddled 
 with the fumes of opium, but the one thing clear to 
 him was, that a Joss, though an immortal being, was 
 able to comprehend hatred. 
 
 The gods punished terribly, slaying with plague 
 and pestilence, destroying life by flood and years 
 of famine, and so Leh Shin knew that they were 
 very like men, taking full advantage of their fearful 
 power and punishing the smallest neglect with the 
 utmost rigour. He could appeal to a great invisible 
 cruel brain and demand assistance for his own limited 
 desire for revenge, knowing that it was an attribute 
 of those whose help he sought, but he went in fear, 
 with pricking nerves, because his belief was strong 
 in the power of the monsters he worshipped. 
 
 The Joss House stood in a wide street near the 
 river; a stone courtyard separated it from the thor- 
 oughfare, and the building itself was raised on a 
 terrace, led up to by two shallow flights of steps. 
 The roof was a marvel of sea-green mosaic, coiled 
 over by dragons with flaming red tongues and staring 
 glass eyes, each dragon a wonder of fretted fins and 
 ivory teeth and claws. Upon each of the three roofs 
 was set relief mosaic, of beautiful workmanship, 
 representing houses and ships and bridges, with 
 
LEH SHIN IS BREATHED UPON 175 
 
 tiny men and women, and little trees, all as small 
 as a child's plaything, but complete, proportioned 
 and entire. Huge stone pillars covered with devils 
 and crawling lizards supported the long portico that 
 ran the full length of the building, and between each 
 pillar an immense paper lantern gleamed like a dim 
 moon. 
 
 Leh Shin stood outside for a few moments and 
 then plunged in, like a man who is not sure of his 
 nerve and cannot afford to wait too long lest his 
 determination to face what lay inside should fail 
 him. On feast days the Joss House was a gay place, 
 full of lights and people crowding in and out, and 
 there was no room for fear, for even a Joss is not 
 alarming in company with many men, but when Leh 
 Shin went in, the place was deserted, and it seemed 
 to him that the unseen power was terribly near in 
 the darkness. 
 
 It was a vast, lofty building inside, supported 
 by gold pillars and black pillars, and in the centre 
 near the door was a tank-shaped well where pots of 
 flowering plants and palms were set with no particu- 
 lar eye to regularity or effect. As they shivered and 
 rustled in the dark, they were full of a suggestion 
 of the fear that made Leh Shin's heart as cold as a 
 stone in a deep pool. Raised on a jade plinth, a low 
 round pillar stood directly in front of the rose-red 
 curtains that were drawn across the sanctuary space, 
 and on the top of the pillar a bronze jar held one 
 scented stick, that burned slowly, like a winking, 
 drowsy eye, its slow spiral of incense creeping up 
 into the air and losing itself in the high arches of the 
 
176 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 pointed roof. Between the pillar and the sanctuary 
 itself, was a small table covered with an embroidered 
 shawl, worked in spangles that glittered and shone, 
 and beheath the table were a number of smooth 
 stones. 
 
 Leh Shin locked his hands together and passed 
 up the aisle, close to where the palm trees rustled 
 and stirred, and fear was upon him like that of a 
 hungry dog. He crossed a line of light cast by 
 some candles, and it seemed to him that the curtains 
 moved as he approached. The Joss House was ap- 
 parently empty, and yet it did not seem empty. In- 
 visible eyes watched behind the carved screens that 
 shut out the priests' houses on either side, invisible 
 ears might easily catch the lowest whisper of his 
 prayer. Soundless impressions of moving things that 
 had no shape haunted his consciousness, and he 
 started in panic as his own shadow fell before him 
 when he stepped across the burning candles and slid 
 Into the close alley between the table and the shrine. 
 
 He bent down suddenly and, feeling on the cold 
 marble of the floor, took up two of the stones and 
 beat them together with the loud clapping noise 
 which proclaimed a suppliant. Bowed in the close 
 space, he repeated his prayer the requisite number 
 of times, and it seemed to Leh Shin that the Joss 
 heard and accepted: the Joss who took visible 
 shape in his mind, with a face half-human and half- 
 bestial, and who capered with a drawn sword in his 
 hand. 
 
 Over his head the heavy curtains swayed again, 
 and the tittering noise from a nest of bats soimded 
 
LEH SHIN IS BREATHED UPON 177 
 
 like ghostly laughter. His prayer had drawn power 
 to his aid, out of the unknown place where the gods 
 live, and loosed it in response to his cry. He was 
 only Leh Shin, a poor Chinaman who kept a misera- 
 ble shop in the native quarter and an opium den 
 down where the river water choked and gurgled at 
 night, but he felt that he had touched something In 
 the terrible shadows, and once more he beat the 
 stones together, his face pouring with sweat. As 
 the noise echoed up again, the last candle fell dying 
 into a yellow pool of melted wax, and went out with 
 an expiring flicker; and Leh Shin beat his hands 
 against the darkness that shut upon him like a wall. 
 He sprang to his feet and ran, and as he went wings 
 seemed to bear down behind him. There was terror 
 alive In the Joss House, and before that terror he 
 fled panting and trembling, fearful that hands would 
 close upon his black garments and drag him back, 
 holding him until he went mad. As he made for 
 the door he fancied he saw a shadowy form move 
 in the gloom and dear his path, and it added the 
 last touch of panic to his mind. 
 
 He leaned against an outer pillar for support, 
 and gradually the noise of the street drew him back 
 again to reality and to the solid facts of life once 
 more. He had been badly scared, for in some cases 
 when nothing that can be expressed in words takes 
 place, an infinitely greater thing, that no words can 
 express, has occurred mentally. To Leh Shin's be- 
 wildered mind It was clear that he had actually felt 
 a Joss breathe upon him, and that he had heard its 
 footsteps follow him across the marble floor; the 
 
178 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 Joss who had shaken the curtains and extinguished 
 the candles. 
 
 Still bewildered, Leh Shin crossed the courtyard 
 and sat down on the kerb; his head swam and he 
 felt along his legs with shaking hands. A belated 
 fruit seller went by, and he bought a handful of 
 dates, stuck on a small rod and looking like im- 
 mense beetles, and as he ate his confidence in life 
 gradually returned. The Joss was at a safe distance 
 in his house and there was the street to ^ve courage 
 to his heart; the street where men walked safe and 
 secure, and where a worse fear than the fear of 
 death did not prowl secretly. 
 
 After a little while, he got up from the stifling 
 dust and walked slowly on. The streets flared with 
 lights and the gold letters painted large on sign- 
 boards in huge Chinese characters shone out, mak- 
 ing a brave show. There were open restaurants 
 where he could have gone in, and there were houses 
 of entertainment, hung with paper lanterns, that in- 
 vited passers with a sound of music, but Leh Shin 
 continued his mechanical walk, having another pur- 
 pose in his mind. 
 
 He turned out of the lighted glare of the shops 
 and struck along a back alley, where one street 
 lamp gave the sole illumination, and stopping at a 
 low, arched door cut deep in a wall, he knocked and 
 was admitted. Inside the entrance was another door 
 heavily clamped with iron, which gave admission 
 down a long, narrow passage to a room beyond. It 
 was a small room, not unlike a prison, with heavy 
 iron bars against the corridors, and it was quite 
 
LEH SHIN IS BREATHED UPON 179 
 
 bare of furniture except for two deal tables, around 
 which a crowd of men stood playing for money 
 with impassive faces and greedy, grasping hands. 
 There was no mixture of race among the men who 
 gambled; they were all Chinese, most of them clad 
 in indigo-blue trousers and tight vests, though some 
 of them wore white shirts and rakish straw hats. 
 The young men had close-clipped hair and looked 
 like clever bull-terriers, but the older men wore long 
 pigtails wound round their heads in black, rope-like 
 coils. The noise of dominoes thrown out by the 
 man who held the bank and the rattle of dice were 
 almost the only sounds in the room. 
 
 Under one table there was a small shrine, where 
 a diminutive Joss presided over the fortunes of 
 Chance, but Leh Shin did not go to it as was his 
 usual habit before he began to play. He even eyed 
 it uneasily and kept at the further end of the 
 room. 
 
 He played with varying success for an hour, for 
 two hours, and the third hour was running out before 
 he shuffled ofE down the close passage, his scanty 
 winnings tied in the corner of a rag stuffed into his 
 belt, and was let out through the heavily barred doors 
 into the street. The alley-way was deserted, and 
 Leh Shin went down the kennel into the open place 
 with the walk of a man who has something definite 
 to do. A beggar, who had been sitting huddled 
 under the wall of a house opposite, craned his neck 
 out of the shadows, and followed him quickly, 
 
 Leh Shin had passed this last hour deliberately, 
 so as to bring himself to some appointed place neither 
 
i8o THE POINTING MAN 
 
 earlier nor later than he desired to get there, and 
 Coryndon woke to the excitement of the chase again 
 as he followed along the Colonnade. It was easy 
 to walk quickly under the roof that ran from the en- 
 trance down to the turn that led into Paradise Street, 
 and Leh. Shin did not even pause as he passed his 
 own doorway but made on rapidly until he came 
 out at the far end. The hour was very late, and the 
 street silent. A drop in the temperature had driven 
 the sleepers who usually preferred the open to the 
 closeness of walls, within, and the whole double 
 row of houses slept with gaping windows and open 
 doors. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah's curio shop was entirely closed. 
 Every window had outer shutters fastened, and no 
 gleam of light showed anywhere, up or down the 
 high narrow front. When Leh Shin stopped in 
 front of the doorway the beggar sat down opposite 
 to him a little further down the street, his head bowed 
 on his bosom. He watched Leh Shin prowl care- 
 fully round and climb with monkey-like agility from 
 the rails to the window-ledge, where he peered in 
 through the shutters, raising a broken lath to see 
 into the interior. 
 
 Coryndon watched him with intent interest. The 
 night was moonless, he knew that if a match were 
 struck in the interior of the shop it would shine 
 through the raised lath, and it was for that sight 
 that his eyes strained and ached with intense concen- 
 tration. The patience of the Chinaman made Coryn- 
 don feel that he was watching for something definite 
 to happen, and at length a yellow bar cut suddenly 
 
( LEH SHIN IS BREATHED UPON i8i 
 
 across the dark. Coryndon's heart beat so loud 
 that he feared its sound might be heard across the 
 narrow street, and he gripped his hands together. 
 The curio shop was no longer dark, for someone had 
 come in with a lamp; Cor3aidon crept forward, his 
 eyes on the Chinaman, who had slipped back on to 
 the ground and had raced up the steps, beating 
 against the door violently. 
 
 "Come out, father of lies, come out and speak 
 with me. I have news of thy Absalom." 
 
 The beggar was at the foot of the steps now, close 
 beside the dancing image, who smiled and called his 
 attention to the rigid figure of Leh Shin. 
 
 "So thou hast news for me, unclean one? Of this 
 shall the police hear full knowledge two hours after 
 dawn. Where hast thou hidden the body of the boy 
 who was the light of mine eyes, who was ever eager 
 and honest in business?" 
 
 "Thou knowest, traitor," said the Chinaman, his 
 voice hoarse with passion, "what is dark unto others 
 is clear unto me. Have I not the tale of thy years 
 written in the book of my mind?" 
 
 For a moment there was dead silence, and then 
 a voice full of smooth malice and cruelty made an- 
 swer to Leh Shin. 
 
 "Get thee to thy bed, fool." 
 
 "I wait," Leh Shin's voice cracked and trembled, 
 "and when the hour that is already written for thy 
 destruction comes like the night-bat, it is / who shall 
 proclaim it to thee ; thus I have demanded, and thus 
 it shall fall out." 
 
 "O fruitful boaster, O friend of many years, thy 
 
i82 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 words cause me great mirth. Get thee to thy kennel, 
 lest I do indeed come forth and twist thy vxilture's 
 neck." 
 
 A laugh of scorn was the only response to Mhtoon 
 Pah's threat, and the Chinaman turned and came 
 down the steps. 
 
 "Alms, alms," whined a sleepy voice. "The poor 
 are the children of the Holy One. I am blind and 
 I know not the faces of men. Alms, alms, that thy 
 merit may be written in the book." 
 
 "Ask of him that is in that house," said Leh Shin, 
 pointing to the curio shop. "Strike him with thy 
 pestilence that his fatness fall from him and his 
 bones melt, and I will give thee golden rewards." 
 
 The secret passion of the words was so intense 
 that the beggar was silenced, and Leh Shin passed 
 on. He went from Paradise Street to a small bur- 
 row near the Colonnade, and turned into a mean 
 house where the paper lantern still burned in token 
 that the owners were awake. It was quite clean 
 inside, and divided into large cubicles. > In each 
 cubicle was a table, covered with oilcloth, at the 
 head of which was placed a red lacquer pillow and a 
 little glass lamp that gave the only light needed in 
 the long, low room. On the tables lay Burmen and 
 Chinamen, some rigid in drugged sleep, and some 
 smoking Immense pipes with small, cup-like recepta- 
 cles that held the opium. The proprietor was alert 
 and wakeful as he flitted about, an American dga- 
 rette between his lips, in this strange garden of sleep. 
 
 "I am weary," said Leh Shin. "Let me rest here." 
 
 "It is great honour," replied the small, wizened 
 
LEH SHIN IS BREATHED UPON 183 
 
 old man, with the laugh. "What of thine own 
 house by the river?" 
 
 "My limbs fail me. To-night my assistant sup- 
 plies the needs of those who ask, for I had a busi- 
 
 ness." 
 
 "And I trust thy business hath prospered with 
 thee?" 
 
 Leh Shin stretched himself out on a table near 
 the door. 
 
 "I await the hour of prosperity," — he twisted a 
 needle in the brown mass that was offered to him 
 and held it over the lamp. "Evil are the days of 
 a life whilst an old grudge burns like hot charcoal 
 in the heart." 
 
 "It is even so," agreed the proprietor, and he 
 hurried away from the noose of talk that Leh Shin 
 would have cast around him. 
 
 The beggar, having followed Leh Shin as far 
 as the opium den, returned along the Colonnade 
 and knocked at the door of the house where Shiraz 
 waited anxiously for his master. 
 
 "Is my bath prepared, Shiraz? I must wash be- 
 fore I sleep, and I shall sleep late." 
 
 Coryndon was weary. No one who has not 
 watched through hours of strain and suspense knows 
 the utter weariness of mind and body that follows 
 upon the long effort of close attention, and he fell 
 upon his bed in a huddled heap and slept for hour 
 after hour, worn out in brain and body. 
 
XVII 
 
 TELLS HOW CORYNDON LEARNS FROM THE REV. 
 FRANCIS HEATH WHAT THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH 
 NEVER TOLD HIM. 
 
 WHEN Coryndon sat up in his bed, and re- 
 called himself with a jerk from the drowsi- 
 ness of night to the wakefulness of broad daylight, 
 he called Shiraz to ^ve to him instructions. 
 
 After dark, his master told him, he was going to 
 return to the Cantonments, and during his absenc 
 there were some matters which he had decided to 
 leave unreservedly in the hands of Shiraz. He was 
 to cultivate his acquaintance with Leh Shin, the 
 Chinaman, worming his way into his confidence and 
 encouraging him to speak fully of the old hatred 
 that was still like live fire between him and the 
 wealthy curio dealer. Revenge may or may not 
 take the shape and substance of the original wrong 
 done, and the limited intelligence of the Chinaman 
 would suggest payment in the same coin, so it was 
 necessary for Coryndon to know the actual facts of 
 the ancient grudge. Further than this, Shiraz was 
 to go to the shop of Mhtoon Pah, and discover any- 
 thing he could in the course of conversation with the 
 Burman. 
 
 "Mark well all that is said, that when I return it 
 184 
 
CORYNDON LEARNS FROM HEATH 185 
 
 may be disclosed to mine eyes through thy specta- 
 cles," he concluded, tying the ragged ends of his 
 head-scarf over his forehead. 
 
 He went down the staircase with a slow, dragging 
 step, leaning on the rail of the Colonnade when 
 he got out into the street, and halting, with a vacant 
 stare, outside the shop of Leh Shin. 
 
 "So thy devils have not yet caught thee and 
 scalded thee with oil, or burned thee in quicklime?" 
 jeered the boy, as he watched a coolie sweep out 
 the shop. 
 
 He was chewing a raw onion, and he swung his 
 legs idly, for there was nothing to do, and, on the 
 whole, he was glad to have the mad Burman to 
 bait for half an hour's entertainment. 
 
 "The sickness is heavy upon me, my legs are 
 loaded as with wet sand, and my mouth is parched 
 like a rock in the desert," whined the Burman plain- 
 tively. 
 
 "Nay, nay, not thy legs, and thy tongue. The 
 legs and the mouth of the evil man, thy friend, O 
 dolt." 
 
 The Burman shook his head stupidly. 
 
 "The will of the Holy Ones is that I shall re- 
 cover, and my friend has said that I shall go a 
 journey. I go by the ter-rain this night at sunset." 
 
 "Whither doth he send thee, unclean one?" 
 
 The Burman smiled with a sudden look of cun- 
 ning. 
 
 "That is a word unspoken, and neither will I 
 tell it. Thy desire to know what concerns thee not 
 is as great as thy fatness." 
 
1 86 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 With a doggedness that "is often ipart of some 
 forms of mania, the Burman squatted in the dust, 
 and under no provocation could he be induced to 
 speak. After midday he indicated by lifting his 
 fingers to his mouth that he intended to go in search 
 of food; having worked Leh Shin's assistant into a 
 state of perspiring wrath by the simple process of 
 reiterating in pantomime that he was dumb. It 
 must be admitted that Coryndon got no small amount 
 of pleasure out of his morning's entertainment, and 
 he doubled himself up as though in pain as 'he 
 dragged himself back to the house. 
 
 The vanished beggar's tracks were entirely oblit- 
 erated, and when the Burman went off in a gharry in 
 company with Shiraz, the whole street knew that he 
 was being sent away on a secret mission of great 
 Importance. 
 
 To know something that other people do not know 
 is to be in some way their superior. It is a popu- 
 lar fallacy to believe that we all of us are gifted 
 with special insight. The dullest bore believes it of 
 himself, but when it comes to the possession of an 
 absolute fact superiority becomes unmistakable, par- 
 ticularly in circumscribed localities, and Leh Shin's 
 assistant remembered how the sudden dumbness of 
 the crazy Burman had irked his own soul. He told 
 a little of what he professed to know, and having 
 done so, refused to admit more, and so it was cur- 
 rent in the Bazaar that the friend of the rich Punjabi 
 was gone to receive money paid for jewels, and that 
 tiie place of his destination was known only to Leh 
 
CORYNDON LEARNS FROM HEATH 187 
 
 Shin's assistant, who, having sworn on oath, would 
 by no means divulge the name of the place. 
 
 Even Leh Shin, who awoke late, appeared in- 
 terested, and asked questions that made the gross, 
 flabby boy think hard before he replied; and the 
 mystery that attached itself to the departure of the 
 Burman lent an added interest to Shiraz, who re- 
 turned after the usual hour of prayer at the Mosque, 
 and paced slowly up the street, meditating upon a 
 verse from the Koran. The evening light softened 
 and the shadows grew long, making the Colonnade 
 dark a full hour before the street outside was 
 wrapped in the smoky gloom of twilight and the 
 charcoal fires were lighted to cook the evening meal, 
 and by the time that the first clear globes of electric 
 light dotted Paradise Street Coryndon was back 
 in his room and dressed ready to go out to dinner. 
 
 Hartley received the wanderer with enthusiasm, 
 and began at once by telling him that he had an in- 
 vitation for him which was growing stale by long 
 keeping. Mrs. Wilder was giving a very small party 
 and both the Head of the Police and his friend were 
 invited. 
 
 "I accepted definitely for myself, and conditionally 
 for you," said Hartley cheerfully. "Now I will 
 ring up Wilder and tell him that the prodigal has 
 reappeared, and that you will come." 
 
 Coryndon submitted to the inevitable with a good 
 grace; it was one of his best social qualifications, 
 and arose from a keen sensitiveness that made it 
 nearly impossible for him ever to disappoint any- 
 one. He had hoped for a quiet evening, when he 
 
i88 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 might expect to get to bed early and have time to 
 think over every tiny detail of his time in the Man- 
 gadone Bazaar; but as this was not possible, he 
 agreed with sufficient alacrity to deceive his kind host. 
 
 His face was drawn and tired, and his eyes were 
 heavy; he noticed this as he glanced into his glass, 
 but after all it did not matter. His social importance 
 was small, and for to-night he was nothing more 
 than an adjunct of Hartley, a mere postscript put 
 in out of formal politeness. He was not going in 
 order to please Mrs. Wilder — though, as she ap- 
 peared on his mental list of names, she had her place 
 in the structure that filled his mind — ^but to please 
 Hartley. Any time would have done for Mrs. 
 Wilder, she was but a cypher in the total, but if he 
 had begged off to-night he would have had to hurt 
 Hartley. Coryndon could never get away from the 
 other man's point of view; it dogged him in great 
 things and in small, and he was obliged to realize 
 Hartley's pleasure in seeing him, and his further 
 pleasure in carrying him off to a house where he 
 himself enjoyed life thoroughly. Coryndon could 
 as easily have disappointed a child, or been cruel to 
 a small, wagging puppy as to Hartley in his present 
 mood. 
 
 He knew that he would have to shut the door upon 
 his dominating thought, unless something occurred 
 to open it during the evening. Women liked to play 
 with fire, and he wondered if Mrs. Wilder would 
 show any inclination to fiddle with gunpowder, but 
 he hardly expected that she would, though she had 
 played some part in the extensive drama that reached 
 
CORYNDON LEARNS FROM HEATH 189 
 
 from Heath's bungalow to the Colonnade in. the 
 Chinese quarter, leaving a gap between that his 
 brain struggled with in vain. j' 
 
 It was like the imaginable space between life and 
 death, where both conditions existed, and one was 
 the key to the other. Something was lacking. One 
 small master touch wanting to lay the whole thing 
 bare of mystery. Coryndon's weary eyes reflected 
 the state of his mind. He felt like an inventor who 
 is baffled for the lack of a tiny clue that makes the 
 impossible natural and easy, or a composer who hears 
 a refrain and cannot call it into birth in clear defiant 
 chords. To think too much when thought cannot ' 
 carry the mind over the limiting barrier is to spend 
 substance on fruitless effort, and Coryndon delib- 
 erately shut the door of his mind and put the key 
 away before he started out with Hartley. 
 
 The night was clear as the two men went off to- 
 gether hatless through the soft moonlight. Neither 
 Coryndon nor Hartley talked much as they walked' 
 by a short cut across the park to the Wilders' bun- 
 galow, a servant carrying a lantern going before 
 them like a dim will-o'-the-wisp ; the yellow lamplight 
 paling into an ineffectual blur against the clear moon- 
 light, j 
 
 "I think it is only ourselves," said Hartley after 
 a long pause. "You are looking a bit done, Corjm- 
 don, so you'll be glad if it isn't a late night." j 
 
 Coryndon agreed, and conversation flagged again. 
 They crossed the road, turned up the avenue and 
 -were lost in the shadows of the trees, coming out 
 again into a white bay of light outside the door. 
 
igo JHE POINTING MAN 
 
 Everyone, man or woman, who is endowed at 
 birth with a sensitive nature is subject to occasional 
 inrushes of detachment that without warning cut him 
 off from realities for moments or hours, converting 
 everyday matters into the consistency of dream-life. 
 It was through this medium that Coryndon saw 
 Mrs. Wilder when he came into the large upstairs 
 drawing-room. It would have annoyed her to know 
 that she appeared indefinite and shadowy to his 
 mind, just as it annoyed Alice when she was told that 
 she was only "Something in the Red King's dream," 
 but Coryndon could not help his sensations. Mrs. 
 Wilder was smiling with her careless, easy, confident 
 smile, and yet he saw only an unaccounted bit of the 
 puzzle, that he could not fit in. She was dressed in 
 the latest fashion, and talked with a kind of regal 
 amiability, but nevertheless, she was not a real 
 woman, a real hostess, or a positive entity; she was 
 vague, and the touch of her floating personality 
 added to the baffled sensation that drained Coryn- 
 don's mind of concentrated force, and made him 
 physically exhausted. 
 
 Wilder had something to say to Hartley, and 
 Coryndon handed himself over like a coat or an 
 umbrella to Mrs. Wilder, who, he knew, was placing 
 a low valuation upon him, and was already a JIttle 
 impatient at his lack of vitality. She was calling 
 him a bore, behind her fine, hard eyes, and having 
 exhausted Mangadone in a few sentences, wondered 
 what sort of bore he really was. There were golf 
 bores, fishing bores, and shooting bores, but Coryn- 
 don hardly appeared to belong to any of those 
 
CORYNDON LEARNS FROM HEATH 191 
 
 families, and she began to suspect him of "su- 
 periority," a type of bore aggressive to others of 
 his cult. Mrs. Wilder did not tolerate a type to 
 which she herself undoubtedly owned to some slight 
 connection, and she gave up all effort to awaken 
 interest in the slim, weary young man, who looked 
 half-asleep. 
 
 "Mr. Heath ought to be here directly," she said, 
 in her loud, clear voice. "Draycott, don't forget to 
 ask him to say grace." 
 
 If she had got up and taken Coryndon by the 
 shoulders and shaken him, the effect could not have 
 been more marked and sudden. All the dull feeling 
 of detachment cleared off at once, and he knew that 
 his senses were sharp and acute; his bodily fatigue 
 fell away, and as he moved in his chair his eyes 
 turned towards the door. 
 
 "I wish he would hurry," growled Wilder, a prey 
 to the pessimism of the half-hour before dinner. "He 
 is inexcusably late as it is." 
 
 As though his words had summoned the Rev. 
 Francis Heath, footsteps mounting the staircase fol- 
 lowed Wilder's remark, and the clergyman came into 
 the room. Immediately upon his coming, conversa- 
 tion became general, and a few moments later the 
 party was seated round a small table kept for In- 
 timate gatherings, and placed in the centre of the 
 large teak-panelled room. An arrangement of plum- 
 bago and maidenhair, and pale blue shaded candles 
 casting a dim light, carried out the saxe blue effect 
 that Mrs. Wilder had evolved with the assistance 
 
192 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 of a ladies' paper that dealt with "effective and 
 original table decoration." 
 
 In spite of Mrs. Wilder's efforts, assisted as they 
 were by Hartley, conversation flagged for the first 
 two courses. Heath was not exactly awkward, but 
 he was conscious of the fact that he and Hartley had 
 had an unpleasant interview, burled by the passing 
 of a few weeks, but by no means peaceful in its 
 grave. There was just a suggestion of strain in 
 his manner, and he was evidently carrying through 
 a duty in being there at all, rather than out for 
 pleasant society. 
 
 Coryndon observed him carefully, particularly 
 when he talked to his hostess. If she was helping to 
 screen him, the clergyman was too honest not to 
 show some sign of gratitude either in his manner 
 or in his deep-set eyes, and yet no such indication was 
 evident. Coryndon disassociated his mind from the 
 history of the case, and saw austerity flavoured with 
 a near approach to disapproval. Judging by ex- 
 ternals, the Rev. Francis Heath held no very ex- 
 alted opinion of his hostess. 
 
 "She has done nothing for him," he said to him- 
 self. "If obligation exists, it is the other way 
 round," and he proceeded to watch Mrs. Wilder's 
 manner towards her clerical guest with heightening 
 interest. 
 
 Usually she was very sure of herself, more es- 
 pecially so in her own house, and surrounded with 
 the evidences of her husband's official rank. When 
 Mrs. Wilder talked to the poor, insignificant Padre 
 who could be of no real social assistance to her, she 
 
CORYNDON LEAR,NS FROM HEATH 193 
 
 changed her manner, the manner that she directed 
 pointedly towards Coryndon, and became quelled and 
 softened. 
 
 Mrs. Wilder, propitiatory and diffident, was, 
 Coryndon felt, Mrs. Wilder caught out somehow 
 and somewhere; perhaps on the night of the 29th of 
 July, and as he considered it, Coryndon knew that 
 the shoe was on a much smaller foot than Hartley 
 had measured for it, and that the secret understand- 
 ing between Heath and Mrs. "Wilder was one-sided 
 in its benefits. 
 
 Hartley had recounted the story of the fainting 
 fit as a landmark by which he remembered where he 
 was himself, and, adding this fact to what he ob- 
 served, Coryndon put Mrs. Wilder on one side and 
 mentally drew a red-ink line under her total. He 
 knew all he needed to know about her, and she had 
 no further interest for his mind. He talked to her 
 husband when once he had satisfied himself defi- 
 nitely, and as dinner wore on the atmosphere became 
 more genial and less strained than when it had begun. 
 
 "By the way," said Wilder carelessly, "was it 
 ever discovered how that fellow Rydal got clear of 
 the country?" 
 
 He spoke to Hartley, but Heath, who had been 
 talking across the table to Coryndon, lost his place, 
 stumbled and recovered himself with difficulty, and 
 then lapsed into silence. Hartley had a few things 
 to say about Rydal, but chief among them was the 
 astounding fact that he had dodged the police, who 
 were watching the wharves and jetties, and, so far 
 as he knew, the man had never left Mangadone. 
 
194 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "Do you suppose that he got away disguised?" 
 
 "Impossible," said Hartley, with decision. "He 
 was a big, fair Englishman with blue eyes. Nothing 
 on earth could have made him look anything else. 
 It was too risky to attempt that game." 
 
 Mrs. Wilder was not interested in Rydal, and she 
 sprayed Coryndon with light, pointless conversation, 
 leaving Heath to his meditations for the moment. 
 Hartley would have enjoyed a private talk with his 
 hostess because he loved her platonically, and because 
 it was impossible he was distrait and jerky, trying to 
 appear cordial towards Heath. It was one of those 
 evenings that make everyone concerned wonder why 
 they ever began it, and though Coryndon was of all 
 the invited guests the one who found least favour 
 in the eyes of his hostess, he was the only one who 
 felt glad that he had come, and was perfectly con- 
 vinced that it had been worth it. 
 
 The Rev. Francis Heath rose early to take his 
 leave ; and there was a distinct impression of relief 
 when he had gone. 
 
 "That Padre is like wet blotting-paper," said 
 Wilder, when he came back into the drawing-room. 
 "No more duty invitations, Clarice, or else wait 
 until I am out in camp." 
 
 "He Is a bore," said Mrs. Wilder, throwing her 
 late guest to the sharks without remorse. "But I 
 suppose he can't help it. He may have something 
 to worry him." She just indicated her point with a 
 glance at Hartley, who murmured incoherently and 
 became interested in his drink. 
 
 "Parsons are all alike," said Wilder, who fully 
 
CORYNDON LEARNS FROM HEATH 195 
 
 believed that he stated an obvious fact. "I feel as 
 if I ought to apologize for not going to church when- 
 ever I meet one." 
 
 "He is a bore," repeated Mrs. Wilder. "But he 
 is finished with for the present." 
 
 Coryndon looked up. 
 
 "I suppose one is inclined to mix up a man with 
 his profession, as people often mix up nationalities 
 with races, forgetting that they are absolutely apart. 
 Heath is not my idea of a clergyman." 
 
 "And what is your idea?" asked Mrs. Wilder, 
 with a smile that was slightly encouraging. 
 
 "A man with less temperament," said Coryndon 
 slowly. "Heath lacks a certain commonplace cour- 
 age, because he feels things too much. He is not 
 altogether honest with himself or his congregation, 
 because he has the protective instinct over-developed. 
 If I had a secret I should feel that it was perfectly 
 safe with Heath." 
 
 A slow red stain showed itself on Mrs. Wilder's 
 cheek, and she gave a hard, mechanical laugh. 
 
 "Are these the deductions of one evening? No 
 wonder you are a silent man, Mr. Coryndon." 
 
 If Coryndon had been a cross-examining counsel 
 instead of a guest at a dinner-party, he would have 
 thanked Mrs. Wilder politely and told her that she 
 might "step down." As it was, he assured her that 
 he was only attracted by certain personalities, and 
 that, usually speaking, he did not analyse his im- 
 pressions. 
 
 "He is a bore," said Mrs. Wilder, making the 
 
196 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 statement for the third time that evening, and thus 
 disposing of Heath definitely. 
 
 "It wasn't up to the usual mark," said Hartley, 
 half-apologetically as he and Coryndon walked home 
 together. "I felt so awkward about meeting Heath." 
 He paused and looked at Coryndon, longing to put 
 a question to him, but not wishing to break their 
 agreement as to silence. 
 
 "Tell me about Rydal," said Coryndon in the 
 voice of a man who shifts a conversation adroitly. 
 "I don't remember your having mentioned the case." 
 
 Hartley had not much to tell. The man had been 
 in a position of responsibility in the Mangadone 
 Bank, and Joicey had given information against him 
 the very day he absconded. Rydal was married, and 
 the cruel part of the story lay in the fact that he had 
 deserted his wife on her deathbed, fully aware that 
 she was dying. 
 
 "She died the evening he left, or was supposed to 
 have left. At all events, the evening he disap- 
 peared." 
 
 "And the date?" 
 
 Coryndon's eyes were turned on Hartley's face, 
 and he heard him laugh. 
 
 "You'll hardly believe it, but it happened, like 
 everything else, on the twenty-ninth of July." 
 
 "Can your boy look after me for a few days?" 
 Coryndon asked quietly. "I was riot able to bring 
 my bearer with me, and I may have to be here for 
 a little longer than I had expected." 
 
 "Of course he can." 
 
 They walked into the bungalow together, and it 
 
CORYNDON LEARNS FROM HEATH 197 
 
 surprised and distressed Hartley to see how white 
 and weary the face of his friend showed under the 
 hanging lamp. 
 
 "I ought not to have dragged you out," he said 
 remorsefully. 
 
 "I am very glad you did." 
 
 There was so much sincerity in'Coryndon's tone 
 that Hartley was satisfied, and he saw him into his 
 room before he went off, whistling to his dog and 
 calling out a cheery "Good night." 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE REV. FRANCIS HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR AND 
 SHOWS WHAT LIES BEHIND 
 
 WHEN Coryndon made up his mind to any 
 particular course of action and time pressed, 
 he left nothing to chance. Under ordinary circum- 
 stances, he was perfectly ready to wait and let things 
 happen naturally; and so greatly did he adhere to 
 this belief in chance that he always hesitated to make 
 anything deliberately certain. Had he felt that he 
 could allow time to bring circumstance into his grasp, 
 he would have preferred to do so, but, as he sat on 
 the side of his bed, his chota haziri untouched on a 
 table at his elbow, he knew that every minute counted, 
 and that he must come out of the shadow and de- 
 liberately face and force the position. 
 
 If he could always have worked in the dark he 
 would have done so, and no one ever guessed how 
 unwillingly he disclosed himself. He was a shadow 
 in the great structure of criminal investigation, and 
 he came and went like a shadow. When it was pos- 
 sible he vanished out of his completed case before 
 his agency was detected, and as he sat thinking, he 
 wondered if Hartley could not be trusted with the 
 task that lay before him that day, but even as the 
 thought came into his mind he decided against it. 
 
 198 -. 
 
HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR 199 
 
 Opportunity must be nailed like false coin to the 
 counter, and there could be no question of leaving 
 a meeting to the last moment of chance. He had to 
 make sure of his man ; that was the first step. 
 
 During the course of an idle morning, Coryndon 
 wandered to the church, and saw that at 5.30 p.m. 
 the Rev. Francis Heath was holding service. After 
 the service there would be a choir practice, and 
 Coryndon, having made a mental note of the hour, 
 went back to luncheon with Hartley. 
 
 The afternoon sunlight was dreaming in the gar- 
 den, and the drowsy air was full of the scent of 
 flowers. Coryndon had something to do, and he 
 was wise enough to make no settled plan as to how 
 he would do it, beforehand. He put away all 
 thought of Absalom and the other lives connected 
 with the disappearance of the Christian boy, and let 
 his thoughts drift out, drawing in the light and colour 
 of the world outside. 
 
 Yesterday has power over to-day; to-morrow even 
 greater power, for to-morrow holds a gift or a whip, 
 and Coryndon knew this, thinking out his little phi- 
 losophy of life. To be able to handle a situation 
 which may require a strength that is above tact or 
 diplomacy, he knew that all those yesterdays must 
 give their store of gathered strength and knowledge. 
 
 As there was no running water to watch, Coryn- 
 don watched the shadows and the light playing hide- 
 and-go-seek through the leaves, through his half- 
 closed eyes. They made a pattern on the ground, 
 and the pattern was faultless in its beauty. Nature 
 alone can do such things. He looked at the far-off 
 
20O THE POINTING MAN 
 
 trees of the park, green now, to turn into soft blue 
 masses later on when the day waned, and the in- 
 trinsic value of blue as colour flitted over his fancy. 
 The music that was part of his nature rippled and 
 sang in obligato to his thoughts, and because, he 
 loved music he loved colour and knew the connection 
 between sound and tint. Colour, to its lightest, 
 least value, was music, expressing itself in another 
 way. 
 
 Hartley went out with his dog; went softly be- 
 cause he believed his friend slept, and- Corjmdon did 
 not stir. Somewhere in the centre of things actual, 
 Hartley lived his cheerful, happy life, dreaming 
 when he was lonely of the woma:n who darned his 
 socks and smiled at him. In Coryndon's life there 
 was no woman either visionary or real, and he won- 
 dered why he was exempt from these natural dreams 
 of a man. He was very humble about himself. He 
 knew that he was only a tracker, a brain that carried 
 a body, not a healthy animal body that controlled 
 the greater part of a brain. He was given the 
 power to grip motives and to read hearts, and be- 
 yond that he only lived in his fingers when he played. 
 He had his dreams for company when he shut the 
 door on the other half of his active brain, and he 
 had his own thrills of excitement and intense joy 
 when he found what he was seeking, but beyond this 
 there was nothing, and he asked for nothing. Blue 
 shadows, and a drifting into peace, that was the end. 
 He pulled himself together abruptly, for it was five 
 o'clock, and time for him to start. 
 
 When Coryndon had drunk some tea, he started 
 
HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR 201 
 
 out on foot to St. Jude's Church. He knew that he 
 would get there in time to find the Rev. Francis 
 Heath. The choir practice did not take very long, 
 and as he walked into the church they were singing 
 the "last verses of a hymn. Heath sat in one of the 
 choir pews, a sombre figure in his black cassock, 
 listening attentively. 
 
 "Happy birds that sing and fly 
 Round Thy altars, O Most High." 
 
 The choir sang the "Amen," and sang it false, 
 because they were in a hurry to troop out of the 
 church; the girls were whispering and collecting 
 gloves and books, and the boys were already clat- 
 tering off with an air of relief. Heath spoke to the 
 organist, making some suggestion in his grave, quiet 
 voice, and when he turned, Coryndon was standing 
 in the chancel. 
 
 "Can I speak to you for a moment?" he asked 
 easily. 
 
 "Come into the vestry," said Heath quietly. "We 
 shall be undisturbed there." 
 
 He went down the chancel steps and opened a 
 door at the side, waiting for Colryndon to go in, and 
 closing the door behind them. A table stood in the 
 middle of the room with a few books and papers 
 on it, and a square window lighted it from the west- 
 ern wall; there were only two chairs in the room, 
 and Heath put one of them near the table for his 
 visitor, and took the other himself. 
 
 He did not know what he expected Coryndon to 
 say; men very rarely came to him like this, but he 
 
ao2 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 felt that it was possible that he was in search of 
 something true and definite. Truth was in his eyes, 
 and his dark, fine face was earnest as he bent for- 
 ward and looked full at the clergyman. 
 
 "What can I do for you?" 
 
 Heath put the question tentatively, conscious of 
 a sudden quick tension in the atmosphere. 
 
 Coryndon's eyes fixed on him, like gripping hands, 
 and he leaned a little over the table. 
 
 "You can tell me how and when you got Rydal 
 out of the country." 
 
 For a moment, it seemed to Heath that the whole 
 room rocked, and that blackness descended upon 
 him in waves, blotting out the face of the man who 
 asked the question, destroying his Identity, and leav- 
 ing him only the knowledge that the secret that he 
 had guarded with all the strength of his soul was 
 known, inexplicably, to Hartley's friend. He tried 
 to frame a reply, but his words faltered through dry 
 lips, and his face was white and set. 
 
 "Why should you say that I helped Rydal?" 
 
 "Because," Coryndon's answer came quickly, "you 
 told me so yourself last night at dinner." 
 
 He heard Coryndon speak again, very slowly, 
 so that every word came clear Into the confusion of 
 his throbbing brain. 
 
 "I knew from Hartley that you were in Paradise 
 Street on the evening of the twenty-ninth of July, 
 and that you saw and spoke to Absalom. I am con- 
 cerned In the case of finding that boy or his mur- 
 derer, and anything you can tell me may be of help 
 to me in putting my facts together. I had to come 
 
HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR 203 
 
 to your confidence by a direct question. Will you 
 pardon me when you consider my motive ? I am not 
 concerned with Rydal: my case is with Absalom." 
 
 He looked sympathetically at the worn, drawn 
 face across the table, that was white and sick with 
 recent fear. 
 
 "Tell me the events just as they came," he said 
 gently. "You may be able to cast light on the 
 matter." 
 
 Heath looked up, and his eyes expressed his silent 
 acceptance of Coryndon's honesty of purpose. 
 
 "I will tell you, Mr. Coryndon. God knows that 
 the case of this boy has haunted me night and day. 
 He was my best pupil, and when Hartley accused 
 me by inference, of complicity, I suffered as I believe 
 few men have had to suffer because I could not 
 speak. I may not be able to assist you very far, but 
 all I know you shall know if you will listen to me pa- 
 tiently." 
 
 Heath relapsed into silence for some little time, 
 and when he spoke again it was with the manner 
 of a man who gives all his facts accurately. He 
 omitted no detail and he set the story of Rydal 
 before Coryndon, plainly and clearly. 
 
 Rydal had been a clerk in the Mangadone Bank, 
 and had been in the place for some years before he 
 went home and returned with a wife. He was an 
 honest and kindly young fellow and he worked hard. 
 There was no flaw in his record, and Heath believed 
 that he was under the influence of a very genuine 
 religious feeling. He frequently came to see Heath, 
 who knew his character thoroughly, and knew that 
 
204 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 he was weak in many respects. He talked enthusi- 
 astically of the girl he was going to marry, and 
 Heath saw him off on the liner when Rydal got his 
 leave and, full of glad anticipation, went away to 
 bring out his wife. 
 
 When the clergyman had reached this point in 
 his story, he got up and paced the floor a couple of 
 times, his monkish face sad and troubled, and his 
 eyes full of the tragic revelations that had yet to be 
 made. 
 
 Coryndon did not hurry the narrative. He was 
 engaged in calling up the mental presentment of the 
 young happy man. Heath had described him as 
 "fresh-looking," and had said that his manner was 
 frank and always kindly; he was friendly to weak- 
 ness, kindly to weakness, his virtues all tagged off 
 into inefficient lack of grip; but he was honest and 
 he found life good. That was how Rydal had 
 started, that was the Rydal who had gripped Heath's 
 hand as he stood on the deck of the Worcestershire 
 and thought of the girl whom he was going home 
 to marry. 
 
 "I still see him as I saw him then," said Heath, 
 with a catch in his voice. "He was so sure of all 
 the good things of life, and Jie had managed to save 
 enough to furnish the bungalow by the river. I had 
 gone over it with him the day before he sailed, and 
 his pride in it all was very touching." 
 
 Coryndon nodded his head, and Heath took up the 
 story again, standing with his hands on the back of 
 the chair. 
 
 "Rydal came back at the end of three months, his 
 
HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR 205 
 
 wife with him. She was a pretty, silly creature, and 
 her ideas of her social importance were out of all 
 keeping with Rydal's humble position In the Bank. 
 She dressed herself extravagantly, and began to en- 
 tertain on a scale that was ridiculous considering 
 their poverty. Before their marriage, Rydal had 
 told me that it was a love match, and that she was 
 as poor as he, as all her own people could do for 
 her was to make a small allowance sufficient for her 
 clothes." 
 
 Coryndon sat very still. Heath had come to the 
 point where the real interest began: he could see 
 this on the sad face that turned towards the western 
 window. 
 
 "In the early hours of one morning towards the 
 end of July," went on Heath wearily, "I was awak- 
 ened by Rydal coming into my room. I could see 
 at once that he was in desperate trouble, and he sat 
 down near me and hid his face in his hands and cried 
 like a child. There was enough in his story to 
 account for his tears, God knows. His wife was ill, 
 perhaps dying; he told me that first, but that I 
 already knew, and then he made his confession to 
 me. He had embezzled money from the bank and 
 it could only be a matter of hours before a warrant 
 was issued for his arrest. I must not dwell too long 
 on these details, but they are all part of the story, 
 and without them you could not understand my own 
 place in what follows. It is sufficient to tell you 
 that I returned at once with him, and his wife added 
 her appeal to mine to make her husband agree to 
 leave the country. If she lived, she could join him 
 
2o6 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 later, but if he was arrested before she died, she 
 could only feel double torment and remorse. In the 
 end we prevailed upon him to agree to go. The sin 
 was not his morally" — Heath's voice rose in pas- 
 sionate vindication of his act — "in my eyes, and, I 
 believe, in the eyes of God, the man was not respon- 
 sible. I grant you his criminal weakness, I grant 
 you his fall from honour and honesty, but then and 
 now I know that I did right. The one chance for 
 his soul's welfare was the chance of escape. Prison 
 would have broken and destroyed him. A white man 
 among native criminals. His life had been a good 
 life, and an open, honest life up to the time that 
 his wife's constant demand for what he could not 
 give broke down the barriers and made him a 
 felon." 
 
 He wiped his face with his handkerchief and drew 
 a deep breath. This was how he had argued the 
 point with himself, and he still held to the validity 
 of his argument. 
 
 "That was early on the morning of July the 
 twenty-ninth?" asked Coryndon. 
 
 "Yes, that was the date. There was a small 
 tramp in port, going to South America. I had once 
 been of some little assistance to the captain, and I 
 knew that he would do much to serve me. I went 
 on board her at once, and saw him, disguising none 
 of the facts or the risk it entailed, and he agreed 
 willingly to assist Rydal. He was to be at a certain 
 point below the wharves that evening, and the Lady 
 Helen was to send a boat in to pick him up." 
 
HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR 207 
 
 "I understand," said Coryndon, "the warrant was 
 issued about noon the same day?" 
 
 "As far as I know, Joicey gave information 
 against him just about then, but he had already left 
 the bungalow. I went down Paradise Street to make 
 my way out along the river bank at a little after six 
 o'clock. I passed Absalom in the street and spoke 
 a word to the boy, but time was pressing and I did 
 not dare to be late. It was of the utmost importance 
 that there should be no hitch in any part of the plan, 
 for the Lady Helen could not delay over an hour. 
 I got to the appointed place by the river just after 
 twilight had come on " 
 
 "Were you seen by anyone?" 
 
 Heath paused and thought for a moment. 
 
 "I would like to deal entirely candidly with you, 
 Mr. Coryndon, but, with your permission, I must 
 avoid any mention of names. As it happened, I wm 
 seen, but I believe that the person who saw me has 
 no connection with either my own place In this story 
 or the story itself so far as it affects Absalom. I 
 saw Rydal go. He went in silence, an utterly broken- 
 hearted and ruined man, and only ten months divided 
 that day from the day that he stood on the deck of 
 the Worcestershire filled with every hope the heart 
 of a man knows. Behind him, his wife lying near 
 death in the little house his love had provided for 
 her, and nothing lay before him but utter desolation. 
 I watched the boat take him away into the darkness, 
 and I saw the lights of the Lady Helen quite clearly, 
 and then I saw her move slowly off, and I knew that 
 Rydal was safe." 
 
2o8 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 He paused and stared into the darkness of the 
 room, seeing the whole picture again, and feeling the 
 awful misery of the broken man who had gone by 
 the way of transgressors. The man who had once 
 been light-hearted and happy, who had sung in his 
 choir, and who had read the lessons for tb^Rev. 
 Francis Heath and helped him with his boys. 
 
 Coryndon's face showed his tense, close interest 
 as the clerg)mian spoke again. 
 
 "I was standing there for some time, how long 
 I do not know, when I saw that I was not alone, and 
 that I was being watched by a Chinaman. I knew 
 the boy by sight, and must have seen him before 
 somewhere else. He was a large, repulsive creature, 
 and appeared to have come from one of the houses 
 near the river, where there are Coringyhis and low- 
 caste natives of India. At the time I remarked 
 nothing, but when the boy saw that he had attracted 
 my attention, he started into a run, and left me with- 
 out speaking. The incident was so trifling that it 
 ^hardly made me uneasy. No one had seen me actu- 
 ally with Rydal " 
 
 "You are quite clear on that point? Not even 
 the other person you alluded to?" 
 
 "I can be perfectly clear. I passed the other per- 
 son going in the opposite direction, before I joined 
 Rydal. On the way back I saw Absalom again, and 
 he was with the Chinaman whom I already men- 
 tioned; they did not notice me, and they were talking 
 eagerly; my mind was overful of other things, and 
 you will understand that I did not think of them 
 then, but, as far as I remember, they went towards 
 
HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR 209 
 
 the fishermen's quarter on the river bank. I cannot 
 be sure of this." 
 
 Coryndon did not stir; the gloom was deep now, 
 and yet neither of the men thought of calling for 
 lights. 
 
 "And the Chinaman?" 
 
 Heath flung out his arms with a violent ges- 
 ture. 
 
 "He had seen and recognized Rydal, and he had 
 the craftiness to realize that his knowledge was of 
 value. Next day everyone in Mangadone knew 
 that the hue and cry was out after the absconded 
 clerk. He had betrayed his trust, cheated and de- 
 frauded his employers, and left his wife to die alone, 
 for she died that night, and I was with her. That 
 was the story in Mangadone. It was known in the 
 Bazaar, and how or when it came to the ears of the 
 Chinaman I cannot tell you, but out of his knowledge 
 he came to me, and I paid him to keep silence. He 
 has come several times of late, and I will give him 
 no more money. Rydal is safe. I have heard from 
 him, and the law will hardly catch him now. I know 
 my complicity, I know my own danger, but I have 
 never regretted it." Again the surging flood of 
 passion swept into Heath's voice. "What is my life 
 or my reputation set against the value of one living 
 soul? Rydal is working honestly, his penitence is 
 no mere matter of protestation, his whole nature has 
 been strengthened by the awful experience he has 
 passed through. How it may appear to others I 
 cannot say, and do not greatly care. In the eyes of 
 God I am vindicated, and stand clear of blame." 
 
2IO THE POINTING MAN 
 
 He towered gaunt against the light from the win- 
 dow behind him, and though Coryndon could not see 
 his face, he knew that it was lighted with a great 
 rapture of self-denial and spiritual glory. 
 
 "You need fear no further trouble from the boy," 
 he said, rising to his feet. "I can tell you that defi- 
 nitely. I am neither a judge nor a bishop, Mr. 
 Heath, but I can tell you honestly from my heart 
 that I think you were justified." 
 
 He went out into the darkness that had come black 
 over the evening during the hour he had sat with 
 Heath, and as he walked back to the bungalow he 
 thought of tTie man he had just left. There had 
 been no need for Coryndon to question him about 
 Mrs. Wilder: her secret mission to the river inter- 
 ested him no further. Heath had protected her and 
 had kept silence where her name was concerned, and 
 yet she chose to belittle him in her idle, insolent 
 fashion. 
 
 He thought of Heath sitting by the bed of the 
 dying woman, and he thought of him following the 
 wake of the Lady Helen down the dark river with 
 sad, sorrowful eyes, and through the thought there 
 came a strange thrill to his own soul, because he 
 touched the hem of the garment of the Everlasting 
 Mercy, hidden away, pushed out of life, and for- 
 gotten in garrulous hours full of idle chatter. 
 
 Yet Mrs, Wilder had announced with her regal 
 finality no less than three times in the hearing of 
 Coryndon the previous evening that the Rev. Francis 
 Heath was "a bore." 
 
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?" 
 
 A MAN with a grievance, however silent he may 
 be by nature, is, generally speaking, voluble 
 upon the subject of his wrongs, real or imaginary; 
 but a man with a grudge is intrinsically different. An 
 old grudge or an old hate are silent things, because 
 they have deep roots and do not require attention, 
 and it is only in flashes of sudden feeling, or when 
 the means to the end is in view, that the man with 
 a grudge reveals details and tells his story. Shiraz 
 paid several visits to, and spent some time in the 
 shop of, Leh Shin before he arrived at what he 
 wanted to know. 
 
 He went also to Mhtoon Pah's shop, but came 
 away without discovering anything. Into the ears 
 of Hartley, Head of the Police, the Burman raged 
 and screamed his passionate hate, because he believed 
 it promoted his object; but to the Punjabi he was 
 smooth and complaisant, and refused to be drawn 
 into any admission. Leh Shin, the Chinaman, was 
 Bazaar dust to his dignity, and he knew naught of 
 him, save only that the man had an evil name earned 
 
 211 
 
212 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 by evil deeds, and Shiraz, who was as crafty as 
 Mhtoon Pah, saw that he had come to a "no thor- 
 oughfare" and turned his wits towards Leh Shin. 
 
 Little by little, and without any apparent motive, 
 he worked the Chinaman up to the point where 
 silence is agony, and at last, as a river in flood crashes 
 over the mud-banks, the whole tale of his wrongs 
 came bursting through his closed mouth, and with 
 the sweat pouring down his yeUow face he out it 
 into words. 
 
 The meanest story receives something vital in 
 its constitution when it is told with all the force and 
 conviction of years of hatred behind the simple 
 fact of expression, and the story that Leh Shin re- 
 counted to Shiraz was a mean story. The Chinaman 
 had the true Eastern capacity for remembering the 
 least item in the long account that lay unsettled be- 
 tween himself and the Burman. His memory was 
 a safe in which the smallest fact connected with it 
 was kept intact and his mind traversed an intermin- 
 able road of detail. 
 
 The two men had begun life as friends. The 
 friendship between them dated back to the days when 
 Leh Shin and Mhtoon Pah were small boys running 
 together in the streets of Mangadone, and no an- 
 tipathy that is a first instinct has ever the depth of 
 root given to the bitterness that can spring from a 
 breach in long friendship, and Leh Shin and Mhtoon 
 Pah hated as only old friends ever do hate. 
 
 Leh Shin started in life with all the advantages 
 that Mhtoon Pah lacked, and he appreciated the 
 slavish friendship of the Burman, which grew with 
 
LEH SHIN WHISPERS A STORY 213 
 
 years. Mhtoon Pah became a clerk on scanty pay 
 in the employ of a rice firm, and lleh Shin, at his 
 father's death, became sole owner of the house in 
 Paradise Street; no insignificant heritage, as it was 
 stocked with a store of things that increased in value 
 with age, and in the guise of his greatest friend 
 Mhtoon Pah was made welcome at the shop when- 
 ever he had time to go there. From his clerkship 
 in the firm of rice merchants Mhtoon Pah, at the 
 insistence of his friend, became part partner in the 
 increasing destiny of the curio shop. He travelled 
 for Leh Shin, and brought back wares and stores in 
 days when railways were only just beginning to be 
 heard of, and it was difficult and even dangerous to 
 bring goods across the Shan frontier. He had the 
 control of a credit trust, though not of actual money, 
 and for a time the partnership prospered. Mhtoon 
 Pah was always conscious that he was a subordinate 
 depending on the good will of his principal, and 
 even as he ate with cunning into the heart of the 
 fruit, the outside skin showed no trace of his ravages. 
 Leh Shin's belief in his friend's integrity made him 
 careless in the matter of looking into things for 
 himself, and lulled into false security, he dreamed 
 that he prospered; his dream being solidified by the 
 accounts which he received from the Burman. In 
 the zenith of his affluence he married the daughter 
 of a Burman into whose house Mhtoon Pah had in- 
 troduced him, and it was only after the wedding fes- 
 tivities that he became aware that he had supplanted 
 the friend of his bosom in the affections of the 
 smiling Burmese girl. Mhtoon Pah was away on a 
 
214 THE POINTING MAN. 
 
 journey, and on his return rejoiced in the subtle, 
 flattering manner that he knew so well how to prac- 
 tise, and if he felt rancour, he hid it under a smile. 
 
 Marriage took the Chinaman's attention from the 
 shop, and Mhtoon Pah, still a subordinate in the 
 presence of his master, was arrogant and filled with 
 assurance in his dealings with others. Interested 
 friends warned the Chinaman, but he would not 
 listen to them. He believed in Mhtoon Pah and he 
 had covered him with gifts. 
 
 "Was he not my friend, this monster of infamy?" 
 he wailed, rocking himself on his bed. "O that I 
 had seen his false heart, and torn it, smoking, from 
 his ribs!" 
 
 Leh Shin was secure in his summer of prosperity, 
 and when his son was bom he felt that there was 
 no good thing left out of the pleasant ways of life. 
 In the curio shop in Paradise Street Mhtoon Pah 
 waxed fat and studied the table of returns, and in 
 the garden of the house where Leh Shin lived in his 
 fool's paradise, the Chinaman loosed his hold upon 
 the reins of authority. 
 
 The first sign of the altered and averted faces of 
 the gods was made known to Leh Shin when his 
 wife dwindled and pined and died. 
 
 "But that, O friend, was not the work of thine 
 enemy," said Shiraz, pulling at his beard reflectively. 
 "Even in thine anger, seek to follow the ways of 
 justice." 
 
 "How do I know it?" replied Leh Shin. "He 
 ever held an evil wish towards me. Her death was 
 slow, like unto the approach of disaster. I know 
 
LEH SHIN WHISPERS A STORY 215 
 
 not whence it came, but my heart informs me that 
 Mhtoon Pah designed it." 
 
 Quickly upon the death of his wife came the dis- 
 appearance of his son. The boy had been playing 
 in the garden, and the garden had been searched 
 in vain for him. No trace of the child could be 
 found, though Mangadone was searched from end 
 to end. 
 
 "Searched," cried the Chinaman, "as the pocket 
 of a coat. No corner left that was not peered into, 
 no house that was not ransacked." The Chinaman's 
 voice quivered with passion, and his whole body 
 shook and trembled. 
 
 Life flowed back into its accustomed current, and 
 nearly a year passed before the next trouble came 
 upon Leh Shin. Mhtoon Pah came back from a 
 prolonged journey that had necessitated his going 
 to Hong-Kong, and he came back with dismay in his 
 face and a story of loss upon loss. He had com- 
 promised his master's credit to a heavy extent, and 
 not only the gains he had made but the principal 
 was swept away into an awful chasm where the grasp- 
 ing hands of creditors grabbed the whole of Leh 
 Shin's patrimony, claiming it under papers signed 
 by his hand. 
 
 "It was then that light flowed in upon my dark- 
 ness, and I saw the long prepared evil that was the 
 work of one man's hand." Leh Shin rose upon 
 his string bed and his voice was thin with rabid 
 anger. "I caught him by the throat and would have 
 stabbed him with my knife, but he, being a younger 
 man than I, threw me off from him, and, when he 
 
2i6 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 made me answer, I saw my foe of many years stand 
 to render his account to me. 'Thou, to call me thief,' 
 said he, 'who robbed me of my wife and cheated me 
 of my son.' " 
 
 After that, poverty and ruin drove him slowly 
 from his house outside Mangadone to the shelter 
 of the shop in Paradise Street, and from there, at 
 length, to the burrow in the Colonnade. The bit- 
 terness of his own fall was great enough in itself to 
 harden the heart of any man, but it was doubled by 
 the story of the years that followed. Slowly, and 
 without calling too evident attention to himself, 
 Mhtoon Pah began to prosper. He opened a booth 
 first, where he sat and cursed Leh Shin whenever 
 he passed, saying loudly that he had ruined him and 
 swindled him out of all his little store, that by hard 
 work and attention to business he had collected. 
 
 From the booth, just as Leh Shin left Paradise 
 Street, Mhtoon Pah progressed to a small unpre- 
 tentious shop, and a year later he moved again, as 
 though inspired by a: spirit of malice, into the very 
 premises where Leh Shin had first employed him as 
 a clerk. That day Leh Shin went to his Joss and 
 swore vengeance, though how his vengeance could 
 be worked into fact was more than his opium-mud- 
 dled brain could conceive. Vengeance was his dream 
 by night, his one concentrated thought by day, and 
 he came no nearer to any hope of fulfilling it. 
 Mhtoon Pah, wealthy and respected; Mhtoon Pah, 
 the builder of shrines ; Mhtoon Pah, who spoke with 
 high Sahibs and had the ear of the Head of the 
 Police himself, and Leh Shin clad in ragged clothes, 
 
LEH SHIN WHISPERS A STORY 217 
 
 and only able to keep his hungry soul in his body by 
 means of his opium traffic, how could he strike at 
 his foe's prosperity? His hate glared out of his 
 eyes as he panted, stopping to draw breath at the 
 end of his account. 
 
 Had Shiraz known the legend of the wise wolf 
 who changed from man to beast, he might have sup- 
 posed that some such change was taking place in 
 Leh Shin. His trembling lips dribbled, his head 
 jerked as though supported by wires, and his eye- 
 brows twitched violently as though he had no control 
 over their movements. He had forgotten Shiraz 
 and was thinking only of the tribulation he had suf- 
 fered and of the man whose gross form inhabited 
 his whole mental world. Shaking like a leaf, he got 
 off his bed and stood on the earth floor. 
 
 "May he be eaten by mud-sores," he said savagely. 
 "May he die by his own hand, and so, as is the 
 Teaching, be shut out of peace, and return to earth 
 as a scorpion, to be crushed again into lesser life 
 by a stone." 
 
 "By the will of Allah, who alone is great, there 
 will be an end of thy troubles," said Shiraz non-com- 
 mittally as he got up. "Thou hast suffered much. 
 Be it requited to thee as thou wouldst have it fall 
 in the hour that is already written ; for no man may 
 escape his destiny, though he be fleet of foot as the 
 antlered stag." 
 
 "Son of a Prophet, thy words are full of wisdom." 
 
 "Let it comfort thine afiliction," said Shiraz, with 
 the air of a man making a gift. 
 
 "Yet I would hasten the end." He gave a strange,. 
 
2i8 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 soundless laugh that startled Shiraz, who looked at 
 him sideways. "And mark this, O wise one, mine en- 
 emy hath already felt the first lash of the whip fall, 
 even the whip that scourged my own body. He hath 
 lost the boy whom he ever praised in the streets, 
 and suffered much grief thereby. May his grief 
 thrive and may it be added to until the weight is 
 greater than he can bear." He swung up his hand 
 with a stabbing movement. "I would rip him like 
 a cushion of fine down. I would strike his face with 
 my shoe as the Nats that he dreads caught his 
 screaming soul." 
 
 "Peace, peace," said Shiraz. "Such words are ill 
 for him who speaks, and ill alike for him who listens. 
 In such a day as already the end is scored like a 
 comet's tail across the sky, the end shall be, and not 
 before that day. Cease from thy clamour lest the 
 street hear thee, and run to know the cause." 
 
 He took leave of his friend and went slowly away 
 to his own house, having achieved his master's mis- 
 sion, and feeling well satisfied with his afternoon's 
 work. 
 
 Motive, the hidden spring of action, was made 
 clear, and Shiraz knew enough of his master's 
 methods to realize that he had come upon a very 
 definite piece of evidence against Leh Shin, the China- 
 man. From the point of view of Shiraz the man 
 was quite justified in killing Absalom, since "An eye 
 for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," appeared fair 
 and reasonable to his mind. The Burman had over- 
 reached Leh Shin, and now Leh Shin had begun the 
 cycle again, and had smitten at the curio dealer 
 
LEH SHIN WHISPERS A STORY 219 
 
 through the curio dealer's boy, for whom he appeared 
 to have a fanatical affection. According to Shiraz, 
 the house in Paradise Street stood a good chance of 
 being burned to the ground. If this "accident" hap- 
 pened, Shiraz would know exactly whose hand it was 
 that lighted the match. It was all part of an organ- 
 ized scheme, and though he did not know how Coryn- 
 don would bring the facts home, fitting each man 
 with his share, like a second skin to his body, he felt 
 satisfied that he had provided the lump of clay for 
 the skilled potter to mould into shape. 
 
 He took ofi his turban, and lay down on his carpet. 
 The day was still hot, and the drowsy afternoon out- 
 side his closed windows blinked and stared through 
 the hours, the glare intensifying the shadows under 
 the trees and along the Colonnade. The soda- 
 water and lemonade sellers in their small booths 
 drove a roaring trade as they packed the aquama- 
 rine-green bottles in blocks of dirty ice to keep the 
 frizzling drink cool; and the cawing of marauding 
 crows and the cackle of fowl blended with the shout- 
 ing of drivers and sellers of wares, who heeded not 
 the staring heat of the sun. 
 
 After the emotion of telling his tale, Leh Shin 
 slept in his own small box of darkness, and, in the 
 rich curio shop in Paradise Street, Mhtoon Pah 
 leaned on an embroidered pillow with closed eyes. 
 The stream of life flowed slowly and softly through 
 the hours when only the poor have need to work; 
 soft as the current of a full tide that slides between 
 wide banks, and soft as sleep, or fate, or the destiny 
 which no man can hope to escape. 
 
XX 
 
 CRAVEN JOICEY, THE BANKER, IS FACED BY A MAN 
 WITH A WHIP IN HIS HAND, AND,CORYNDON FINDS 
 A CLUE 
 
 IT is a matter of universal belief that a woman's 
 most alluring quality is her mystery, and Coryn- 
 don, no lover of women, was absorbed in the study 
 of mystery without a woman. 
 
 He had eliminated the woman. 
 
 In his mind he cast Mrs. Wilder upon one side, 
 as March throws February to the fag end of winter, 
 and rushes on to meet the primrose girl bring^g 
 spring in her wake. He had dealt simultaneously 
 with Mrs. Wilder's little part in the drama and the 
 part of Francis Heath, Priest in Holy Orders. How 
 they had both stood the test of detection he did not 
 trouble to analyse. "Detection" is a nasty word, 
 with a nasty sound in it, and no one likes it well 
 enough to brood over all it exactly means. 
 
 Coryndon was sufficiently an observer of men and 
 life to feel grateful to Heath, because he had seen 
 something for a short moment as he studied the 
 clergyman that dwells afterwards in the mind, like 
 a stream of moonlight lying over a tranquil sea. 
 Hidden things, in his experience, were seldom things 
 of beauty, and yet he had come upon one fair place 
 
CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE 221 
 
 in the whole puzzling and tangled story collected 
 round the disappearance of the Christian boy Ab- 
 salom. 
 
 Mrs. Wilder and Heath were both accounted for 
 and deleted from the list of names indelibly in- 
 scribed in his mental book; but one fact that was 
 sufficiently weighty had been added to what was still 
 involved in doubt : the fact that Heath had seen the 
 boy in company with Leh Shin's assistant. 
 
 Coryndon was subject to the ordinary prejudices 
 of any man who makes human personality a study, 
 and he was more than half disposed to go back to 
 the Bazaar and hear whatever evidence Shiraz had 
 been able to collect during his absence. Two rea- 
 sons prevented his doing this. One was that he 
 would have to wait until it was dark enough to leave 
 Hartley's bungalow without being watched, and pos- 
 sibly followed, and the other that there was still one 
 name on the list that required attention, and he be- 
 gan to feel that it required immediate attention. A 
 toss of a coin lay between which course he should 
 adopt first, and he sat very still to consider the thing 
 carefully. 
 
 In the service of which he was a member, he had 
 learnt that much depends upon getting facts in their 
 chronological order, and that if there is the least 
 disunion in the fusing of events, deduction may ham- 
 mer its head eternally against a stone wall. He did 
 not know positively that Leh Shin had decoyed the 
 boy away by means of his assistant, but he was in- 
 clined to believe that such was the case. The 
 blood-stained rag looked like a piece of impudent 
 
222 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 bravado more than likely to have emanated from 
 the brain of the young Chinaman. His mental fin- 
 gers opened to catch Leh Shin and lay hold on him, 
 but they unclosed again, and Coryndon felt about 
 him in the darkness that separates mind from mind. 
 He knew the pitfall that a too evident chain of cir- 
 cumstances digs for the unwary, and he fell back 
 from his own conviction, testing each link of the 
 chain, still uncertain and still doubtful of what 
 course he should pursue. 
 
 He had another object in view, an object that en- 
 tailed a troublesome interview, and he turned his 
 thoughts towards its possible issue. Information 
 might be at hand in the safe keeping of his servant 
 Shiraz, but he considered that he must argue his own 
 conclusions apart from anything Shiraz had discov- 
 ered. Narrowing his eyes and sitting forward on 
 the edge of his bed, he thought out the whole prog- 
 ress of his scheme. Coryndon was an essentially 
 quiet man, but as he thought he struck his hands to- 
 gether and came to a sudden decision. 
 
 If life offers a few exciting moments, the man 
 who refuses them is no adventurer, and Coryndon 
 saw a chance for personal skill and definite action. 
 He felt the call of excitement, the call that pits will 
 against will and subtlety against force, and that is 
 irresistible to the man of action. Probably it was 
 just that human touch that decided him. One course 
 was easy; a mere matter of reassuming a disguise 
 and slipping back into the life of the people, which 
 was as natural to him as his own life. A tame end- 
 ing, rounded off by hearing a story from Shiraz, and 
 
CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE 223 
 
 laying the whole matter in the hands of Hartley. 
 The proof against the assistant was almost con- 
 clusive, and if Shiraz had burrowed into the heart 
 of the motive, it gave sufficient evidence to deliver 
 over the case almost entire to the man who added 
 the last word to the whole drama before the cur- 
 tain fell. 
 
 Coryndon knew the full value of working from 
 point to point, but beside this method he placed 
 his own instinct, and his instinct pointed along a 
 difFerent road, a road that might lead nowhere, and 
 yet it called to him as he sat on the side of his bed, 
 as roads with indefinite endings have called men 
 since the beginning of time. 
 
 Against his own trained judgment, he wavered 
 and yielded, and at length took his white topi from 
 a peg on the wall and walked out slowly up the gar- 
 den. It was three in the afternoon. Just the hour 
 when Shiraz was lying on his mat asleep, and when 
 Leh Shin slept, and Mhtoon Pah drowsed against 
 his cushion from Balsorah, each dreaming after his 
 own fashion; and it was an hour when white men 
 were sure to be in their bungalows. Hartley was 
 lying in a chair in the veranda, and all through 
 Mangadone men rested from toil and relaxed their 
 brains after the morning's work. 
 
 Coryndon went out softly and slowly, and he 
 walked under the hot burning sun that stared down 
 at Mangadone as though trying to stare it steadily 
 into flame. White, mosque-like houses ached in the 
 heat, chalk-white against the sky, and the flower- 
 laden balconies, massed with bougainvillasa, caught 
 
224 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 the stare and cracked wherever there was sap 
 enough left in the pillars and dry woodwork to re- 
 spond to the fierce heat of a break in the rains. 
 
 It was a long, hot walk to the bungalow where 
 Joicey lived, over the Banking House itself, and 
 the vast compound was arid and bare from three 
 days of scorching drought. Coryndon's feet 
 sounded gritting on the red, hard drive that led to 
 the cool of the porch. No one called at such an 
 hour; it was unheard of in Mangadone, where the 
 day from two to five was sacred from interruption. 
 
 A Chaprassie stopped him on the avenue, and 
 a Bearer on the steps of the house itself. There 
 were subordinates awake and alive in the Bank, 
 ready to answer questions on any subject, but Coryn- 
 don held to his purpose. He did not want to see 
 any of the lesser satellites; his business was with the 
 Manager, and he said that he must see him, if the 
 Manager was to be seen, or even if he was not, as 
 his business would not keep. 
 
 A young man with a smooth, affable manner ap- 
 peared from within, and said he would give any 
 message that Coryndon had to leave with his prin- 
 cipal, but Coryndon shook his head and politely de- 
 clined to explain himself or his business, beyond the 
 fact that it was private and important. The young 
 man shook his head doubtfully. 
 
 "It doesn't happen to be a very good hour. We 
 never disturb Mr. Joicey in the afternoons." 
 
 "May I send in my card?" asked Coryndon. 
 
 "Certainly, if you wish to do so." 
 
 Coryndon took a pencil out of his pocket, and, 
 
CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE 22s 
 
 scribbling on the corner of his card, enclosed it in 
 an envelope, and waited in the dark hall, where elec- 
 tric fans flew round like huge bats, the smooth-man- 
 nered young man keeping him courteous company. 
 "Mr. Joicey rests at this time of day," he ex- 
 plained. "I hope you quite understand the difE- 
 culty." 
 
 "I quite understand," replied Coryndon, "but I 
 think he will see me." 
 
 There was a pause. The young man did not 
 wish to contradict him, but he felt that he knew the 
 ways and hours of the Head of the Firm very much 
 better than a mere stranger arriving on foot just as 
 the Bank was due to close for the day. He won- 
 dered who Coryndon was, and what his very press- 
 ing business could possibly be, but even in his wild- 
 est flights of fancy, and, with the thermometer at 
 112°, flights of fancy do not carry far, he never even 
 dimly guessed at anything the least degree connected 
 with the truth. 
 
 The Bearer came down the wide scenic stairway 
 and said that his master would see Mr. Coryndon 
 at once. The young man with the smooth manner 
 faded off into dark shadows with an accentuation 
 of impersonal civility, and Coryndon walked up the 
 echoing staircase by the front of the hall, down a 
 corridor, down another flight of stairs, and into the 
 private suite of rooms sacred to the use of the head 
 of the banking firm, and used only in part by the 
 celibate Joicey. 
 
 Joicey was standing by a table, looking at Coryn- 
 don's card and twisting it between his fingers. He 
 
226 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 recognized his visitor when he glanced at him, and 
 showed some surprise. The room was in twilight, 
 as all the outside chicks were down, and there was 
 a lingering faint perfume of something sweet and 
 cloying in the air. Joicey looked sulky and irritated, 
 and he motioned Coryndon to a chair without seat- 
 ing himself. 
 
 "Well," he said brusquely, "what's this about 
 Rydal?" He pointed with a blunt finger to the 
 card that he had thrown on to the table. 
 
 "That," said Coryndon, also indicating the card, 
 "is merely a means towards an end. I have the 
 good fortune to find you not only in your house, but 
 able to receive me." 
 
 The colour mounted to Joicey's heavy face, and 
 his temper rose with it. 
 
 "Then you mean to tell me " He broke off 
 
 and stared at Coryndon, and gave a rough laugh. 
 "You're Hartley's globe-trotting acquaintance, 
 aren't you? Well, Hartley happens to be a friend 
 of mine, and it is just as well for you that he is. 
 Tell me your business, and I will overlook your in- 
 trusion on his account." 
 
 Something inside Coryndon's brain tightened like 
 a string of a violin tuned up to concert-pitch. 
 
 "In one respect you are wrong," he said amiably, 
 and without the smallest show of heat. "I am, as 
 you say. Hartley's friend, but I must disown any 
 connection with globe-trotting, as you call it. I am 
 in the Secret Service of the Indian Government." 
 
 "Oh, are you?" Joicey tore up the card and 
 threw it into a basket beside the writing-table. 
 
CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE 227 
 
 "It may interest you to know," went on Coryn- 
 don easily, "that my visit to you is not altogether 
 prompted by idle curiosity." He smiled reflec- 
 tively. "No, I feel sure that you will not call it 
 that." 
 
 "Fire ahead, then," said Joicey, whose very evi- 
 dent resentment was by no means abated, "Ask 
 your question, if it is a question." 
 
 "I am coming to that presently. Before I do I 
 want you to understand, Mr. Joicey, that, like you, 
 I am a servant of the public, and I am at present 
 employed in gathering together evidence that throws 
 any light upon the doings of three people on the 
 night of July the twenty-ninth." 
 
 "Then you are wasting valuable time," said 
 Joicey defiantly. "I was away from Mangadone on 
 that night." 
 
 "I am quite aware that you told Hartley so." 
 Coryndon's voice was perfectly even and level, 
 but hot anger flamed up in the bloodshot eyes of 
 Craven Joicey. 
 
 "I put it to you that you made a mistake," went 
 on Coryndon, "and that in the interests of justice 
 you will now be able to tell me that you remember 
 where you were and what you were doing on that 
 night." 
 
 Joicey thrust his hands deep into his pockets, his 
 heavy shoulders bent, and his face dogged. 
 
 "I am prepared to swear on oath that I was not 
 in Mangadone on the night of July the twenty- 
 ninth." 
 
 "Not in Mangadone, Mr. Joicey. Mangadone 
 
228 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 proper ends at the tram lines; the district beyond is 
 known as Bhononie." 
 
 Coryndon could see that his shot told. There 
 were yellow patches around Joicey's eyes, and a pur- 
 ple shadow passed across his face, leaving it leaden. 
 
 "Unless I can complete my case by other means, 
 you will be called as a witness to prove certain facts 
 in connection with the disappearance of the boy Ab- 
 salom on the night of July the twenty-ninth." 
 
 "Who is going to call me?" 
 
 The question was curt, and Joicey's defiance was 
 still strong, but there was a certain huskiness in his 
 voice that betrayed a very definite fear. 
 
 "Leh Shin, the Chinaman, will call you. His neck 
 will be inside a noose, Mr. Joicey, and he will need 
 your evidence to save his life." 
 
 "Lee Shin? That man would swear an3rthing. 
 His word is worthless against mine," said the 
 Banker, raising his voice noisily. "If that is an- 
 other specimen of Secret Service blufi, it won't do. 
 Won't do, d'you hear?" 
 
 Coryndon tapped his fingers on the writing-table. 
 
 "I can't agree with you in your conclusion that 
 It 'won't do.' Taken alone his statement may be 
 worthless, but taken in connection with the fact that 
 you are in the habit of visiting his opium den by the 
 river, it would be difficult to persuade any judge 
 that he was lying. I myself have seen you going in 
 there and coming out." 
 
 He watched Joicey stare at him with blind rage; 
 he watched him stagger and reach out groping hands 
 
CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE 229 
 
 for a chair, and he saw the huge defiance evaporate, 
 leaving Joicey a trembling mass of nerves. 
 
 "It's a lie," he said, mumbling the words as though 
 they were dry bread. "It's a damned, infernal lie !" 
 
 A long silence followed upon his words, and 
 Joicey mopped his face with his handkerchief, 
 breathing hard through his nose, his hands shaking 
 as though he was caught by an ague fit. 
 
 "I'm in a corner," he said at last; "you've got 
 the whip-hand of me, Coryndon, but when I said I 
 was not in Mangadone that night, I was speaking the 
 truth." 
 
 "You were splitting a hair," suggested Coryndon. 
 
 Joicey drew his heavy eyebrows together in an 
 angry frown. 
 
 "Let that question rest," he said, conquering his 
 desire to break loose in a passion of rage. 
 
 "You went down Paradise Street some time after 
 sunset. Will you tell me exactly whom you saw 
 on your way to the river house?" 
 
 Craven Joicey steadied his voice and thought care- 
 fully. 
 
 "I passed Heath, the Parson, he was coming from 
 the direction of the lower wharves, and was going 
 towards Rydal's bungalow. I remember that, be- 
 cause Rydal was in my mind at the time; I had 
 heard that his wife was ill, probably dying, and just 
 after I saw Absalom." 
 
 He paused for a moment and moistened his lips. 
 
 "Was he with anyone when you saw him?" 
 
 "No, he was alone, and he was carrying a par- 
 
230 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 eel. Anyhow, that is all I can tell you about him 
 that night." 
 
 Joicey looked up as though he considered that he 
 had said enough. 
 
 "And from there you went to the opium den," 
 said Coryndon relentlessly. 
 
 The perspiration dripped from Joicey's hair, and 
 he took up the threads of the story once more. 
 
 "I went there," he said, biting the words sav- 
 agely. "I was sick at the time. I'd had a go of 
 malaria and was as weak as a kitten. The place 
 was empty, and only Leh Shin was in the house, and 
 whether he gave me a stronger dose, or whether I 
 was too seedy to stand my usual quantity, I can't tell 
 you, but I overslept my time." 
 
 He passed his hand over his face with a side- 
 ways look that was horrible In its shamefacedness. 
 Coryndon avoided looking at him in return, and 
 waited patiently until he went on. 
 
 "Leh Shin remained with me. He never leaves 
 the house whilst I am inside," continued Joicey. "I 
 was there the night of the twenty-ninth and the day 
 of the thirtieth. Luckily it was a Sunday and there 
 was no fear of questions cropping up, and I only got 
 out at nightfall when it was dark enough for me to 
 go back without risk. Since then," he said, rising 
 to his feet and striking the writing-table with a 
 clenched fist, "I have been driven dose to madness. 
 Hartley was put on to the track of Leh Shin by the 
 lying old Burman, Mhtoon Pah, and Leh Shin's shop 
 was watched and he himself threatened. God! 
 What I've gone through." 
 
CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE 231 
 
 "Thank you," said Coryndon, pushing back his 
 chair. "You have been of the very greatest assist- 
 
 ance to me." 
 
 Joicey sat down again, a mere torment-racked 
 mass, deprived of the help of his pretence, defence- 
 less and helpless because his sin had found him out 
 in the person of a slim, dark-faced man, who looked 
 at him with burning pity in his eyes. 
 
 The world jests at the abstract presentment of 
 vice. From pulpits it appears clothed in attractive 
 words and is spoken of as alluring; and, supported 
 by the laughter of the idle and the stern belief of the 
 righteous in its charms, man sees something gallant 
 and forbidden in following its secret paths. The 
 abstract view has the charm and attraction of an im- 
 pressionist picture, but once the curtain is down, and 
 the witness stands out with a terrible pointing finger, 
 the laughter of the world dies into silence, and the 
 testimony of the preacher that vice is provided with 
 unearthly beauty becomes a false statement, and man 
 is conscious only of the degradation of his own soul. 
 
 Coryndon left the room noiselessly and returned 
 up the steps, arlong the corridor and down the stone 
 flight that led into the subsiding heat of the late 
 afternoon. The young man with the smooth, af- 
 fable manner wheeled a bicycle out of a far corner, 
 and smiled pleasantly at Coryndon. 
 
 "You saw the Manager, and got what you 
 wanted?" 
 
 "I saw him, and got even more than I wanted," 
 said Coryndon, with conviction. 
 
 Things like this puzzled the dream side of his 
 
232 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 nature and left him exhausted. The gathering pas- 
 sion of rage in Joicey's eyes had not touched him, 
 but the memory of the big, bull-dog, defiant man 
 huddled on the low chair, his arm over his face, was 
 a memory that spoke of other things than what he 
 had come there to discover; the terrible things that 
 are behind life and that have power over it. He 
 had to collect himself with definite force, as a child's 
 attention is recalled to a lesson-book. 
 
 "He has cleared Leh Shin," he said to himself, 
 and at first exactly all that the words meant was not' 
 clear to his mind. Joicey had cleared the China- 
 man of complicity, and had knocked the whole struc- 
 ture of carefully selected evidence away with a few 
 words. 
 
 Coryndon was back in Hartley's bungalow with 
 this to consider; and it left him in a strange place, 
 miles from any conclusion. He had sighted the end 
 of his labours, seen the reward of his long secret 
 watchfulness, and now they had withdrawn again 
 beyond his grasp. Heath had seen Absalom with 
 the Chinaman's assistant. Joicey, whose evidence 
 marked a later hour than that of Heath, had seen 
 him alone, and the solitary figure of the small boy 
 hurrying into the dark was the last record that in- 
 dicated the way he had gone. 
 
 Nothing connected itself with the picture as 
 Coryndon sat brooding over it, and then gradually 
 his mind cleared and the confusion of the destruc- 
 tion of his carefully worked-out plan departed from 
 his brain like a wind-blown cloud. There was a 
 link, and his sensitive fine fingers caught it suddenly, 
 
CORYNDON FINDS A CLUE 233 
 
 the very shock of contact sending the blood Into his 
 cheeks. 
 
 The picture was clear now. Absalom, a little 
 white-clad figure, slim, eager and dutiful, hurried 
 into the shadows of night, but Coryndon was at his 
 heels this time. The clue was so tiny, so infinitesi- 
 mal, that it took the eye of a man trained to the last 
 inch in the habit of seeing everything to notice it, 
 but it did not escape Coryndon. 
 
 He joined Hartley at tea in the sitting-room, with 
 its semi-official air of being used for serious work, 
 and Hartley fulfilled his avocation by bringing 
 Coryndon back from strange places into the heart of 
 sane humdrum existence. Surely if some men are 
 pillars, and others rockets, and more poets, profes- 
 sors and preachers, some are hand-rails, and only 
 the man who has just been standing on a dizzy 
 height looking sheer into the bottomless pit where 
 nothing is safe and where life crumbles and fear is 
 too close to the consciousness, knows the value and 
 even the beauty of a hand-rail, and knows that there 
 is no need to mock at its limitations. For a few 
 minutes Coryndon leant upon the moral support of 
 Hartley's cheery personality, and then he told him 
 that he was going back to the Bazaar that night, as 
 circumstances led him to believe that he might find 
 what he wanted there and there only. 
 
 "That means that you have cleared Heath?" 
 
 Hartley's voice was relieved. 
 
 "Heath is entirely exonerated." 
 
 Coryndon wandered to the piano, and he played 
 the twilight into the garden, the bats out of the 
 
234 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 eaves, and he played the shadow of Joicey's shame 
 off his own soul until he was refreshed and renewed, 
 and it was time for him to return to his disguise and 
 slip out of the house. 
 
XXI 
 
 DEMONSTRATES THE PERSUASIVE POWER OF A KNIFE 
 EDGE, AND TELLS A STORY OF A GOLD LACQUER 
 BOWL 
 
 THE obese boy sat in Leh Shin's shop, fiddling 
 sometimes with his ears and sometimes with 
 the soles of his bare feet. He found life just a lit- 
 tle dull, and had he been able to express himself as 
 "bored," he would doubtless have done so. Peeling 
 small dry scales of skin off wear-hardened heels is 
 not the most exciting occupation life affords, and 
 the assistant wished more than once that his master 
 would return from either the gambling den or the 
 Joss House and liberate him for the night. 
 
 It was his night at the river house, and small op- 
 portunities for pilfering from the drugged sleepers 
 made these occasions both amusing and profitable. 
 On the whole he enjoyed the nights in the den, and 
 they added considerably to his bank in a box se- 
 creted behind the Joss who flamed and pranced on 
 the wall. Meanwhile, nothing was doing in the 
 shop, and company there was none, unless the cock- 
 roaches and the lizards could be reckoned in that 
 category. 
 
 His master had been shaky and short of temper 
 when he awoke from his afternoon sleep, and had 
 
 235 
 
236 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 struck his assistant over the head more than once in 
 the course of an argument. Unseen things ticked 
 and rustled in dark comers, and the boy yawned 
 loudly and stretched his arms, making himself more 
 hideous as his contracted mouth opened to its full 
 oval in his large round face. Still nothing happened 
 and no one came, and he returned to the closer ex- 
 amination of a blister that interested him. He 
 probed it with a needle, and it indicated its con- 
 nection with his foot by stinging as though he had 
 burnt himself with a match. 
 
 He was seated on a table bending over his hor- 
 rible employment, half pastime, half primitive op- 
 eration, the light of the lamp full upon him, when 
 a sound of padding feet shook the floor and he 
 looked up, his eyes full of the effort of listening at- 
 tentively, and saw a face peering in at the door. 
 For a moment he was startled, and then he swung 
 his legs, which hung short of the floor, over the side 
 of the table and laughed out loud. 
 
 "So thou art back. Mountain of Wisdom?" he 
 said jeeringly. "Come within and tell me of thy 
 journey." 
 
 The Burman crept in stealthily, looking around 
 him. 
 
 "Aye, I am back. Having done the business." 
 
 Curiosity leapt into the eyes of the Chinaman, and 
 he dropped his attitude of contempt. 
 
 "What business?" he asked greedily. "Before 
 thy departure thou wast mute, stricken as a dumb 
 man, neither wouldst thou speak in response to any 
 question." 
 
THE POWER OF A KNIFE 237 
 
 The Burman curled himself up on the floor and 
 smiled complaisantly. 
 
 "None the less, the business is done, O Bowl of 
 Ghee, and I have returned." 
 
 The assistant ignored the personal description, 
 and adopted a manner calculated to ingratiate him- 
 self into the friendly confidence of the mad Bur- 
 man. He wriggled off the table and crouched on 
 the floor a few inches off Coryndon's face, and the 
 contact being too close for human endurance, Coryn- 
 don threw himself back into the corner and retired 
 behind a mask of cunning obstinacy. 
 
 "Thy business, thy business," repeated the boy. 
 "Was it in the nature of the evil works of the bad 
 man, thy friend?" He leered his encouragement, 
 and fumbling at his belt took out a small coin. 
 "Here, I will give thee two annas if thou tell the 
 whole story to my liking." 
 
 The Burman shook his head, but he appeared to 
 be considering the offer slowly in his obtuse and 
 stagnant brain. 
 
 "Give the money into mine own hand, that the 
 reward be sure," he said, as though he toyed with 
 the idea. 
 
 "Not so," replied the boy. "First the boiled rice 
 and the salt, and afterwards the payment. Thus h 
 the way in honest dealings." 
 
 The Burman shut his mouth tightly and exhibited 
 signs of a return to his former condition of dumb- 
 ness that worked upon the assistant like gall. 
 
 "Then, if nothing less will content thee, take thy 
 money," he said in frothy anger. "Take it and 
 
238 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 speak low, for it may be that eavesdroppers are with- 
 out in the street." 
 
 He dropped the coin into the outstretched palm, 
 but the Burman did not begin his story. He got up 
 and searched behind boxes and shook the rows of 
 hanging garments. He was so secret and silent that 
 the boy became exasperated and closed the narrow 
 door into the street with a bang, pulling across a 
 heavy chain. 
 
 "Let that content thee," he said irritably, chafing 
 under the delay, and sitting down, a frowsy, hor- 
 rible object, in the dim corner, he prepared to enjoy 
 a further description out of the wild fantastic ter- 
 rors of the madman's brain. 
 
 Surprise does not horcr; its coming events are 
 shadowless, and its spring is the spring of a tiger 
 out of the dark, and surprise came upon Leh Shin's 
 assistant as it has come upon men and nations since 
 the world first spun i« space. 
 
 He looked upon the Burman as a harmless luna- 
 tic, and he only half-believed that he had ever been 
 guilty of the act that had ended in a term of impris- 
 onment in the Andaman Islands, but in one moment 
 he realized that it might all be true and that he him- 
 self was possibly singled out as the next victim. 
 
 In one silent moment he found himself pinned in 
 his comer, the Bufman squatting in front of him, 
 a long knife which he had never seen before point- 
 ing at his throat with horrible, determined per- 
 sistency. 
 
 He opened his mouth and thought to cry out for 
 help, but the Burman leaned forward and warned 
 
THE POWER OF A KNIFE 239 
 
 him that if he did so, his last minute had inevitably 
 cdxne. 
 
 "I am thy friend, thy good and honourable 
 friend," he said pleasantly as he made play with the 
 Afghan dagger. "I do but make mirth for both 
 myself and thee, and I have no thought to harm 
 thee." 
 
 The flesh of the gross body crept and crawled 
 under the Burman's look. Fate had put the heart 
 of a chicken in the huge frame of Leh Shin's as- 
 sistant, and it beat now like pelting hail on a frozen 
 road. He was close to a raw, naked fear, and it 
 made him shameless as he gibbered and cowered be- 
 fore it. 
 
 "I have no money," he said, bleating out the 
 words. "All that I have is already paid to thee 
 for thy tale." 
 
 He whined and cringed and writhed in his close 
 corner. 
 
 "I have heard a strange tale," Coryndon said, 
 bending a little closer to him. "Old now as stale 
 fish that has lain in the dust of the street. It has 
 been whispered in my ear that thou knowest how 
 Absalom came to his end." 
 
 "I slew him in the house of a seaman," said the 
 boy, in a quavering voice. "Now take the point of 
 thy knife from my throat, for it doth greatly in- 
 convenience pleasant speech between thee and me." 
 
 Coryndon's watchful eye detected the lie before it 
 announced itself in words, or so it seemed to the 
 boy, who resigned himself to the mere paltry limi- 
 tations of fact, and confessed that he and Absalom 
 
240 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 had been friends and that he had never killed any- 
 thing except a chicken, and once a dog that was too 
 young to bite his hand. 
 
 The details of the story came out at long inter- 
 vals, with breaks of sweating terror between each 
 one. Pieced together, it was simple enough. In 
 spite of the existing feud between their masters, Leh 
 Shin's assistant and Absalom had struck up a kind 
 of friendship that was not unlike the friendship of 
 any two boys in any quarter of the globe. They 
 used special knocks upon the door, and when they 
 passed as strangers in the streets they made masonic 
 signs to one another, and they also gambled with 
 European cards in ofE hours. 
 
 The desire for money, so strong in the China- 
 man, grew gradually in the mind of the Christian 
 boy, whose descent to Avernus was marked first by 
 the sale of his Sunday school prize-books, which he 
 disposed of at the Baptist Mission shop, receiving 
 several rupees in return. Having once possessed 
 himself of what was wealth to him, and having lost 
 most of it in the gentlemanly vice of gambling, he 
 began to need more, but being slow-witted he could 
 think of no way better than robbing Mhtoon Pah, 
 which suggestion the Chinaman's assistant looked 
 upon as both dangerous and weak, regarded in the 
 light of a workable plan. 
 
 It was inside his bullet-head that the idea of a 
 plot that could not be discovered came into its first 
 nebulous being. Absalom found out that Mhtoon 
 Pah was looking for a gold lacquer bowl, and 
 through the agency of Leh Shin the bowl was even- 
 
THE POWER OF A KNIFE 241 
 
 tually marked down as the property of a seaman 
 who was lodging temporarily near the opium den 
 by the river, one of Leh Shin's clients. The assist- 
 ant had the good fortune to overhear the prelimi- 
 naries of the sale, and he immediately saw his op- 
 portunity, as genius alone sees and recognizes 
 chances. It was he who first told Absalom that the 
 bowl was located, and it was he who realized that 
 chance was beckoning on the adventurer. 
 
 It was arranged that Absalom should inform 
 Mhtoon Pah that the coveted treasure was to be 
 had for a price, and it was also the part of Mr. 
 Heath's best scholar, to obtain the money from 
 Mhtoon Pah that was to be paid over to the sea- 
 man for the bowl. By this time Absalom's gam- 
 bling debts had become a serious question with him, 
 and even a lifelong mortgage upon his weekly pay 
 could hardly cover his liabilities. Besides which, he 
 had to live. That painful necessity which dogs the 
 career of greater men than Absalom. 
 
 He appeared to have an almost childish trust in 
 the craft and guile of his Chinese friend, and set 
 the whole matter before him. Mhtoon Pah was 
 ready to pay two hundred rupees for the lacquer 
 bowl, as he was already offered five hundred by Mrs. 
 Wilder, and was content with the profit. Two hun- 
 dred rupees was a sum that was essentially worth 
 some risk. To hand it over to a drunken seaman 
 was against all moral precept. The sailor's ways 
 were scandalous, his gain would go into evil hands. 
 Treated in this manner, even a Sunday-school gradu- 
 ate could lull an uneasy conscience, and as far as 
 
242 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 Coryndon could judge, Absalom was not troubled 
 by any warnings from that s.ilent mentor. Out of 
 the brain of Leh Shin's assistant the great scheme 
 had leapt full-grown, and it only required a little 
 careful preparation to piat it into action. 
 
 The assistant knew the sailor, a Lascar with a 
 craving for drink, and he became friendly with him 
 "out of hours," and learned his ways and the times 
 when he was likely to be in the house where he 
 lodged. The sailor, having come to know that 
 value was attached to his bowl, guarded it with 
 avaricious care when in a condition to do so; and 
 Leh Shin, who trusted his assistant, through whom 
 the news of the deal had first come to his ear, of- 
 fered the man fifty rupees for what he had merely 
 stolen from a shop in Pekin. It took the assistant 
 a full week to arrange events so that he and Ab- 
 salom could work together for the moral good of 
 the sailor, and protect him from the snares of lucre, 
 represented by a third of the money Leh Shin ex- 
 pected to receive. 
 
 He dwelt with some pride upon the fact, and his 
 vanity in this particular almost conquered his fear 
 of the Afghan blade fhat still nestled close to his bull 
 neck. He had drunk in friendship with the sailor, 
 dropping a. drug into his cup, and waiting till his 
 eyes grew dim and he fell forward in a heavy sleep. 
 But even in the moment of achievement his wits were 
 worth more than the wits of Absalom, for he ran 
 out of the house and established an alibi while the 
 Christian boy filched the bowl from beneath the bed 
 of the intoxicated sailor. At a given hour he 
 
THE POWER OF A KNIFE 243 
 
 waited for Absalom just where Heath had stood 
 after he had parted from Rydal, and so chance 
 played twice into his hands in one night. Absalom, 
 who appeared to have imbibed some rudimentary 
 principles of honour among thieves, passed the boy 
 his share, which was a hundred and twenty rupees, 
 including his debts of honour, and having done so, 
 sped away into the night, the bowl under his arm. 
 
 "And that is all the story," said the boy, beating 
 his hands on the floor, and returning from the mo- 
 mentary forgetfulness of the narrative to the im- 
 mediate fear of the knife. "Further than that, I 
 know nothing. The hour is late and if I am not 
 at the river house I shall feel the wrath of my mas- 
 
 ter." 
 
 "It is a poor tale, a paltry tale," said the Bur- 
 man, in tones of disgust. "One that hardly re- 
 quites me for my patience in hearing it out." 
 
 He slipped his knife back into his belt and got 
 up from his heels with a leisurely movement. The 
 boy, still on all fours, watched him closely, and the 
 Burman, his eye attracted by a bright tin kettle hang- 
 ing among the other goods dependent from the ceil- 
 ing, stood looking at it, and as he looked the boy 
 dodged out with a rush, overturning a bale of goods, 
 and tearing at the door like a mad dog, disappeared 
 into the street. 
 
 Coryndon watched him go, and went back to his 
 corner to wait until Leh Shin should return from 
 either the gambling den or the Joss House. He had 
 something to say to Leh Shin, something that could 
 not wait to be said, and he composed himself to the 
 
244 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 necessary patience that is part of all close, careful 
 search, and while he waited, he turned over the evi- 
 dence that had arisen from the little clue that Joicey 
 had given him. Absalom had a parcel under his 
 arm, and that parcel was the gold lacquer bowl that 
 had passed from Mhtoon Pah's curio shop to Mrs. 
 Wilder's writing-table. 
 
 Coryndon fiddled with his fingers in the dust of 
 the floor, and took a blood-stained rag out of his 
 pocket and spread it over his knee. Here was an- 
 other tangible piece of evidence brought by Mhtoon 
 Pah to Hartley. So the record of circumstance 
 closed in. Coryndon thought again. A lacquer 
 bowl and a stained rag of silk, that was all. If he 
 handed over the case to Hartley and Mhtoon Pah 
 was really guilty, other evidence would in all proba- 
 bility be found, and the whole mystery made clear. 
 
 He leaned against the wall and watched the throb- 
 bing lamp-wick, fighting his passion for completed 
 work and his conviction that only he could see it 
 through to its ultimate conclusion. He knew that 
 he was dealing with wits quite as crafty as his own, 
 and argued the point from the other side. Mhtoon 
 Pab had given the rag himself to Hartley, and had 
 sworn that the bowl was left on the steps of his shop. 
 If no further proof was forthcoming, these two facts 
 unsupported were almost worthless. Unless a com- 
 plete denial of his story could be set against it, Hart- 
 ley stood to be checkmated. 
 
 Coryndon had nearly decided against Leh Shin. 
 He drew his knees up under his chin and came to a 
 definite conclusion. He could not give up the case 
 
THE POWER OF A KNIFE 245 
 
 as it stood; he was absolved from any hint of pro- 
 fessional jealousy, and he could count himself free 
 to follow the evidence until it led him irrevocably 
 to the spot where the whole detail was clear and defi- 
 nite. 
 
 All the faces of the men who had figured in the 
 drama floated across his mind, and he thought of 
 the strange key that turned in the lock of one small 
 trivial destiny, opening other doors as if by magic. 
 Absalom's life or death had no outward connection 
 with the Head of the Mangadone Banking Firm, it 
 had notlring in all its days to bring it into touch with 
 Rydal and Rydal's tragedy — Rydal whom Coryn- 
 don had never seen. It lay apart, severed by race 
 and every possible accident of birth or chance, from 
 the successful wife of a successful Civil Servant, or 
 an earnest, hard-working clergyman, and yet the 
 great net of Destiny had been spread on that night 
 of the 29th of July, and every one of them had 
 fallen into its meshes. 
 
 All the immense problem of the plan that so de- 
 cides the current of men's lives came over him, and 
 he saw the limitless value of the insignificant in life. 
 Absalom was only a little floating piece of jetsam 
 on the great waters that divided all these lives, yet 
 he was the factor that had taken the place of the 
 keystone in the arch; the pivot around which the 
 force that guided and ruled the whole apparent 
 chaos had moved. Coryndon wandered a long way 
 in his thoughts from the shop where he sat on the 
 dusty floor, waiting for the return of Leh Shin. He 
 was so still that the cockroaches and black-beetles 
 
246 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 crept out again and formed into marauding expedi- 
 tions where the shadows of the hanging clothes fell 
 dark. 
 
 He turned himself from the pressure of his 
 thought and closed his eyes, resting his brain in a 
 quiet pool of untroubled silence. He knew the need 
 and the art of absolute relaxation from the strain 
 of thought, and though he did not sleep, he looked 
 as though he slept, until he heard the sound of 
 approaching feet and a hand pushed against the 
 door. 
 
XXII 
 
 IN WHICH CORYNDON HOLDS THE LAST THREAD AND 
 DRAWS IT TIGHT 
 
 WHEN Leh Shin opened the shop door and 
 pushed in his grey, gaunt face, he looked 
 around as though wondering in a half-dreamy, half- 
 detached abstraction where some object he had ex- 
 pected to see had gone. At length his eyes wan- 
 dered to the Burman, who sat on the ground eyeing 
 him with a curiously intent and concentrated regard. 
 
 "Thine assistant hath gone to the river house," 
 he said, answering the unspoken question. "He 
 left me in charge of thy shop and thy goods." 
 
 Leh Shin nodded silently and closed the door. 
 When he turned, the Burman beckoned to him with 
 a studied suggestion of mystery. 
 
 "What is thy message?" asked Leh Shin. He 
 believed the Burman to be afflicted with a madness, 
 and his odd and persistent movement of his arm 
 hardly Conveyed anjrthing to the drowsy, drugged 
 brain of the Chinaman. 
 
 The Burman made no reply, but beckoned again, 
 pointing to the floor beside him in dumb show, and 
 Leh Shin advanced slowly and took up his place on 
 a grass mat a little distance off. Silently, and very 
 softly, the Burman crept near to him, and putting 
 
 247 
 
248 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 his mouth close to his ear, talked in a rapid, hissing 
 whisper. His words, were low, but their effect upon 
 Leh Shin was startling, for he recoiled as though 
 touched by a hot needle. His hands clutched his 
 clothes, and his whole frame stiffened. Even when 
 he drew away, he listened with avidity as the Bur- 
 man continued to pour forth his story. 
 
 He had a friend in the household of Hartley 
 Sahib, so he told Leh Shin, a friend who had sensi- 
 tive ears and had heard much; had heard in fact 
 the whole story of the stained rag, and of Mhtoon 
 Pah's wild appeal for justice against the Chinaman. 
 
 "Well for thee, Leh Shin, that I have a friend 
 in the house of that Thakin who rules the Police. 
 But for him I should not have been informed of the 
 plot against thy life, for, 'on this evidence,' saith 
 he, 'assuredly they will hang the Chinaman, and 
 Mhtoon Pah is witness against him.' " 
 
 "Mhtoon Pah, Mhtoon Pah!" said Leh Shin, and 
 he needed to add na curses to the name, spoken as 
 he said it. 
 
 When Coryndon had fully explained that his 
 friend, who was in the service of Hartley, had not 
 only given him a circumstantial account of how the 
 rag was to be used as final and conclusive evidence 
 of Leh Shin's guilt, but that he had also stolen the 
 rag out of Hartley Sahib's locked box, to be safely 
 returned to him later, Leh Shin almost tore it from 
 between Coryndon's fingers. 
 
 "Nay, I cannot deliver it unto thee. My word 
 is pledged. Look closely at it, if thou wilt, but it 
 may not leave my hand or I break my oath." 
 
THE LAST THREAD 249 
 
 He held it under the circle of lamplight, and the 
 Chinaman leaned over his shoulder to look at it. 
 For a long time he examined it carefully, feeling 
 its texture and touching it with light fingers. 
 
 Coryndon watched him with some interest. The 
 Chinaman was applying some definite test to the 
 silk, known to himself. At last he turned his eyes 
 on the Burman, staring with a gaunt, fierce look 
 that saw many things, and when he spoke his words 
 grated and rattled and his voice was almost beyond 
 his control. 
 
 "See now, O servant of Justice, I am learned in 
 the matter of silks, and without doubt this comes 
 surely from but one place." 
 
 Again he fell to touching the silk, and his crooked 
 fingers shook as he explained that the fragment was 
 one he could identify. It was not the product of 
 the silk looms of Burma, or Shantung; it could not 
 be procured even in Japan. It was a rare and spe- 
 cial product fashioned by certain lake-dwellers in 
 the Shan states, and so small was their output that it 
 went to no market. 
 
 "In one shop only in Mangadone," he said; "nay, 
 in one shop only in the whole world may such silk 
 be found. Thus, in his craft, hath mine enemy over- 
 reached himself." 
 
 "Thou art certain of this?" 
 
 "As I am that the sun will rise." 
 
 Coryndon looked again at the silk, and sat silently 
 thinking. 
 
 "The piece is cut off roughly," he said, after a 
 moment of reflection. "Yet, could it be fitted into 
 
250 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 the space left in the roll, then thou art cleared, and 
 hast just cause against Mhtoon Pah." 
 
 "If thy madness comprehends so much, let it 
 carry thee further still, O stricken and afflicted," 
 said Leh Shin, imploring him with voice and ges- 
 ture. "Night after night have I stood outside his 
 shop, but who may enter through a locked door? A 
 breath, a shadow, or a flame, but not a man." He 
 lay on the ground and dug his nails into the floor. 
 "I know the shop from within and without, and I 
 know that the lock opens with difficulty but to one 
 key, the key that hangs on a chain around the neck 
 of Mhtoon Pah." 
 
 Silence fell again as Leh Shin wrestled with the 
 problem that confronted him. 
 
 "What saidst thou?" said the Burman, suddenly 
 coming to life. "A key?" 
 
 He gave a low, chuckling laugh and rocked about 
 in his corner. 
 
 "Knowest thou of the story of Shiraz, the Pun- 
 jabi?" 
 
 "I have no mind for tales," said Leh Shin, strik- 
 ing at him with a futile blow of rage. 
 
 "Nay, restrain thy wrath, since thou hast spoken 
 of a key. With a key that was made by sorcery, 
 he was enabled to open the treasure-box of the Lady 
 Sahib, and often hath he told me that all doors may 
 be opened by it, large or small. It is not hard for 
 me to take it from under his pillow while he sleeps." 
 
 The Chinaman's jaw dropped, and he cast up his 
 hands in mute astonishment. If this was madness, 
 sanity appeared only a doubtful blessing set beside 
 
THE LAST THREAD 251 
 
 it. He drew his own wlt:s together, and leaning 
 near the Burman laid before him the rough outline 
 of a plan. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah's ways were known to him. Usually 
 he went to the Pagoda after the shop was closed, 
 and he returned from there late; it was impossible 
 to be accurate as to the exact hour of his return. 
 To risk detection was to shatter all chance of suc- 
 cess, and it was necessary to make sure before at- 
 tempting to break into the shop and identify the silk 
 rag with the original roll. If that might be done. 
 
 There was only one course open to the Burman 
 and Leh Shin, and that was to wait until there was 
 a Pwe at the Pagoda, which Mhtoon Pah would 
 certainly attend, as his new shrine drew many curious 
 gazers to the Temple. It would also draw the in- 
 habitants of Paradise Street out of the quarter, and 
 leave the place practically deserted. For many 
 reasons it was necessary to wait such an opportunity, 
 though Leh Shin raved at the delay. It seemed to 
 him that the whole plan was of his suggesting, and 
 he did not realize that every vague question put by 
 the Burman led him step by step to the complicated 
 scheme. 
 
 "To-morrow I will send forth my assistant to 
 bring me word of the next Pwe, so that the night 
 may be marked In my mind, and that I shall gain 
 pleasure In considering the nearing downfall of my 
 enemy." 
 
 Coryndon slipped off to his house. He was tired 
 mentally and physically, but before he slept, he took 
 
252 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 a bundle of keys from his dispatch-box and tied them 
 to the waist of his lootiffyi. 
 
 In the morning there was a fresh surprise for Leh 
 Shin. His assistant refused to leave the river house, 
 and no persuasion would lure him out to look after 
 his master's shop. He was afraid of something or 
 someone, and he wept and entreated to be left where 
 he was. Leh Shin beat him and tried to drive him 
 out, to no purpose, and in the end he prevailed over 
 his master, whose mind was occupied with other and 
 more weighty affairs. 
 
 Like a black shadow, Leh Shin crept about the 
 streets, and he questioned one and another as to 
 the festivities to be held at the Pagoda. Every- 
 where he heard of Mhtoon Pah's shrine, and of the 
 great holiness of the curio dealer. Mhtoon Pah 
 was giving a feast at the Pagoda with presents for 
 the priests, and the night chosen was the night of 
 the full moon. 
 
 "Art thou bidden?" asked one who remembered 
 the day of Leh Shin's prosperity. 
 
 "It is in my thoughts, friend, to make my peace," 
 said Leh Shin, with an immovable face. "On the 
 night when the moon is full, I am minded to do so." 
 
 His words were carried back to Mhtoon Pah, 
 who pondered over them, wondering what the 
 Chinaman meant, finding something sinister in the 
 sound that added to his rage against his enemy. 
 
 The day of the feast was dark and overcast, and 
 the inhabitants of Paradise Street looked at the sky 
 with great misgiving, but the curio dealer refused 
 to be alarmed. 
 
THE LAST THREAD 253 
 
 "The night will be fine, for I have greatly pro- 
 pitiated the Nats," he said with conviction, and he 
 lolled and smoked in his chair at an earlier hour than 
 was usual with him. ! 
 
 Even as he had said, the evening began to clear, 
 and by sunset the heavy clouds were all dispersed. 
 A red sunset unfolded itself in a scroll of fire across 
 the sky, and Mangadone looked as though it was 
 illuminated by the flames of a conflagration. A 
 strange evening, some said then, and many said after. 1 
 Even the pointing man lost his jaundice-yellow and 
 seemed to blush as he pointed up the steps. He had 
 nothing to blush for. His master was at the sum-^ 
 mit of his power. The Hypongyts lauded him 
 openly in the streets, and he was giving a feast at 
 the Temple at which the poorest would not be for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Yet Mhtoon Pah was not altogether easy. His 
 eyes rolled strangely from time to time, and it was 
 remarked by several that he walked to the end of 
 Paradise Street and looked down the Colonnade 
 of the Chinese quarter, standing there in thought. 
 Old stories of the feud between him and Leh Shin 
 were recalled in whispers and passed about. 
 
 The red of the sunset died out into rose-pink, and 
 the effect of colour in the very air faded and dwin- 
 dled. People were already dressed out in gala, 
 clothing, and streaming towards the Pagoda. The 
 giver of the feast did not start with them. He sat 
 in his chair, and then withdrew into his shop. A 
 light travelled from thence to the upper story, and 
 then with slow hesitation, Mhtoon Pah came out by 
 
254 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 the front of the house and locked the clamped pad- 
 lock. He stood still for a few minutes, and then he 
 gasped and shook his fist at the empty air, and he» 
 too, took his way across the bridge and was lost in 
 the shadows. 
 
 Still the stream from Wharf Street and the con- 
 fluent streets flowed on up Paradise Street, and 
 gradually only the maimed and the aged, or the 
 impossibly youthful, were left behind, to hear oi 
 the wonders afterwards at secondhand, a second- 
 hand likely to add rather than detract from what 
 actually took place. Even the Colonnade was 
 empty and silent. Shiraz had gone with the crowd 
 to see what might be seen, and Leh Shin's assistant, 
 furtive and watchful, and in great terror of the 
 Burman's knife, was also in the throng that climbed 
 the Pagoda steps. 
 
 The moon that was to have shone on Mhtoon 
 Pah's feast rose in a yellow ring, and clouds came 
 up, hazy, gaudy clouds that dimmed Its light and 
 made the shadows in the silent streets dense and 
 heavy. Usually there was a police guard at the 
 corner where Paradise Street met the Colonnade, 
 but that night Hartley considered the police would 
 be more necessary In the neighbourhood of the 
 Pagoda. Mhtoon Pah did not think of this. His 
 conscience was easy, he had propitiated the Nats. 
 
 The Pagoda was one blaze of light, and a thou- 
 sand candles flamed before every shrine; even the 
 oldest and most neglected had Its ring of light. Small 
 coloured lamps dotted the oudlnes of some of the 
 booths, and the whole spectacle presented a moving 
 
THE LAST THREAD 255 
 
 mass of brilliant colour. Sahibs had come there. 
 Hartley Sahib had agreed to appear for half an 
 hour, and he too looked at the crowd with curious, 
 travelling eyes. Coryndon might be among them, 
 and probably was, he thought, but in any case there 
 was little chance of his recognizing him if he were. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah had not spared magnificent display, 
 and the crowd told each other that it was indeed 
 a night to remember in Mangadone. Whispering 
 winds came out and rang the Temple bells, but even 
 when the breeze strengthened, the rain-clouds held 
 ofi. It became a matter for cempliment and con- 
 gratulation, and Mhtoon Pah accepted his friends' 
 flattery without pride. He was a good man, a bene- 
 factor, a shrine-builder who followed "the Way" 
 with zeal and fervour, and besides, he had propiti- 
 ated Nats; Nats who blew up storms, caused earth- 
 quakes and were evilly disposed towards men. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah would have been at the point where 
 a man's life touches sublimity, but for one thing. 
 The words of Leh Shin echoed in his ears over all 
 the applause and adulation. 
 
 "It is in my thought, friend, to make my peace. 
 On the night of the full moon I am minded to do so." 
 
 The moon riding clear of clouds, shone out over 
 the concourse of men and women. Anywhere among 
 them all might be Leh Shin, the needy Chinaman, 
 and gripping his large hands into fists, Mhtoon Pah 
 watched for him and expected him, but watch as he 
 might, he did not come, neither was there any sign 
 of him among all the crowd of faces that passed 
 and repassed before the new shrine. 
 
XXIII 
 
 demonstrates the truth of the axiom that 
 "the unexpected always happens" 
 
 AT the time when Mhtoon Pah was standing in 
 the centre of a gazing group before the new 
 shrine, and trying to forget that nothing except the 
 news of Leh Shin's hanging would ^ve him real 
 satisfaction, the Chinaman, accompanied by the Bur- 
 man, slipped up the channel of gloom under the Col- 
 onnade and made his way into Paradise Street. 
 
 The Burman walked with an easy unconscious step, 
 but Leh Shin crept close to the wall and started 
 when he passed a sleeping form in a doorway. Night 
 fears and that trembling anxiety that comes when ful- 
 filment is close at hand were upon him. He knew 
 that the point in view was to efFect an entrance into 
 the curio shop, the threshold of which he had not 
 crossed since his last black hour of misfortune had 
 struck and he had gone out a beggar. 
 
 Everything in his life lay on the other side of the 
 shop door; all his happy, prosperous, careless days, 
 all the good years. Every one of them was stored 
 there just as surely as Mhtoon Pah's ivories and 
 carved screens and silks were stored safe against 
 the encroachment of damp and must. His old self 
 might even be somewhere in the silent house, and it 
 
 256 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 257 
 
 ?akes a special quality of courage for a man to re- 
 turn and walk through a doorway into the long past. 
 For the first time for years he remembered how he 
 had brought his little son into the shop, and how the 
 child had laughed and crowed at the sight of amber 
 and crystal chains. 
 
 Even Mhtoon Pah grew dim in his mind, and he 
 dallied with the forgotten memories as he stood 
 shaking in an archway watching the Burman cross 
 the street. Insensibly the Burman's mania had 
 waned in the last few hours, and he had grown 
 silent and preoccupied, a fact that escaped Leh Shin's 
 notice. His owl eyes blinked with the strain of 
 staring through the wavering light, and his memories 
 strove with him as though in physical combat. 
 Mhtoon Pah was no longer in the house, and instead 
 of his shadow another influence seemed to brood 
 there, something that called to Leh Shin, but not 
 with the wild cry of hate. Before the days of still 
 greater affluence Leh Shin had lived there with his 
 little Burmese wife. 
 
 The Burman was on his knees, having some dif- 
 ficulty with the lock. He could see him fighting it, 
 and at last he saw the jerk of his hand that told 
 that the key had turned, and that the way was clear. 
 Leh Shin dived out of the recess and ran, a flitting 
 shadow, across the road. The door was open, but 
 the Burman for all his madness was not satisfied. 
 There was a way out through the back by which 
 they could emerge, and if the front door hung loose, 
 careless eyes might easily be attracted to the fact. 
 The pointing man was not there for nothing. Almost 
 
258 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 everyone looked up the steps. Even in his fury of 
 impatience, Leh Shin saw the reason for caution, 
 and agreed to open a window, and admit the Bur- 
 man after he had locked the door again. 
 
 The moments were full of the tense agony of sus- 
 pense, and he peered cautiously out from under the 
 silk blind. A late passer-by went slowly up the 
 street, and Leh Shin's heart beat a loud obbligato to 
 the sound of his wooden pattens. By craning his 
 neck as the man passed, he could just distinguish the 
 Burman crouching behind the wooden man, who 
 blandly indicated the heavy padlock. The wooden 
 man lied woodenly to the effect that all was well 
 within the curio shop, and a few minutes later the 
 Burman swung himself over the balustrade and 
 climbed with cat-like agility on to the window-ledge. 
 
 The darkness of the room was heavy with scent, 
 and Leh Shin stumbled over unknown things. Coryn- 
 don struck a match and held it in the hollow of one 
 palm as he opened the aperture in the dark lantern 
 he carried, and lighted it. When he had done so he 
 looked up, and taking no notice of the masses of 
 beautiful things, he went quickly to the silk cup- 
 board, opening it with another key on the ring. 
 
 "Leh Shin," he said, speaking In a commanding 
 whisper, "turn thyself into an ear, and listen for 
 me while I search." 
 
 Leh' Shin nodded silently, half-stupidly it seemed, 
 and went on tip-toes to the door that opened into 
 the passage. All the power of the past was over 
 him, and though he heard the Burman's curt com- 
 mand he hardly seemed to understand what he meant. 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 259 
 
 For a little time he stood at the door, hearing the 
 rustling whisper of yards of silk torn down and 
 glanced over and discarded, and then he wandered 
 almost without knowing it up the sta.ircase and 
 through the rooms, until the sight of Mhtoon Pah's 
 bed and some of Mhtoon Pah's clothing recalled his 
 mind to the reason of his being there. 
 
 He hurried down, his bare feet making no sound 
 on the stairs, and looked into the shop again. The 
 Burman was seated on the floor, a width of silk 
 over his knees ; all the displaced rolls had been put 
 back. He had worked swiftly and with the greatest 
 care that no trace of his visit should be known later. 
 
 Leh Shin slid out again. The passage was dark 
 as pitch, but he knew every turn and twist of its 
 windings, and he knew that it led down to the cel- 
 lars below the house. He was awake and alert 
 now as Coryndon himself, and as he strained his 
 ears he caught a sound. He listened again with 
 horrible eagerness, looked back Into the shop and 
 saw the stooping head going over every yard of a 
 roll of fine silk faithfully; and then he gripped the 
 knife under his belt and, feeling along the wall with 
 his free hand, followed along the corridor. Once 
 only he glanced round and then the darkness of the 
 corridor swallowed him from sight. 
 
 Coryndon, busy with the silk made by the lake- 
 dwellers spread over his knees, knew nothing of 
 Leh Shin's disappearance. The fever of chase was 
 in his blood, and he threw the flimsy yards through 
 his hands. Nothing, nothing, and again nothing, 
 and again — he felt his heart swell with sudden, 
 
26o THE POINTING MAN 
 
 stifled excitement. Under his hand was a three-cor- 
 nered rent, a damaged piece where a patch rather 
 larger than his palm had been roughly cut out. His 
 usually steady hand shook as he put the stained rag 
 over it and fitted it into the place. 
 
 "Leh Shin," he called, as he rose, but he called 
 softly. 
 
 No sound answered his whisper, and he stiffened 
 his body and listened. He had been wrong. There 
 was a sound, but it did not come from inside the 
 shop: it was the slow footstep of a heavy man 
 pausing to find a key-. 
 
 Coryndon listened no longer. He closed the 
 door of the silk cupboard, bundled up the yards of 
 silk in his arms and extinguishing the lamp darted 
 behind a screen. It was a heavy carved teak screen, 
 inset with silk panels embroidered with a long spray 
 of hanging wistaria o« a dark yellow ground. As 
 he hid himself, he cursed his own stupidity. In the 
 excitement of his desire to enter the curio shop, he 
 had forgotten to hamper the lock with pebbles. 
 
 After what seemed an age, the door opened slowly 
 and Mhtooil Pah came in. Something, he knew 
 not what, had dragged him away from the Pagoda, 
 and dragged him back to his shop. His eyes looked 
 mad and unnatural in the light of the lantern he 
 held in his hand, and he shut the door and stood 
 like a dog who scents danger, and stared round the 
 room. He walked to the silk cupboard and looked 
 in through the glass panes, but did not open it or 
 discover that it was unlocked. He paced round the 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 261 
 
 room, stopping before the screen, his eyes still re- 
 flecting his trouble of mind. 
 
 From behind the screen, Coryndon watched every 
 stir he made ; he saw the look on his face and noted 
 Mhtoon Pah's smallest movement. There was no 
 evidence of thieves, and yet suspicion made itself 
 plain in every line of the curio dealer's body. At 
 last, with a gasping sigh, he sat before the small 
 figure of an alabaster Gaudama and stared at it 
 with unwinking eyes. 
 
 "I shed no blood," he said, in a low rattling voice. 
 "I shed no blood. My hands are clean." 
 
 Over and over he repeated the words, like an 
 incantation, his voice rising and falling, until Coryn- 
 don could have emerged from his hiding and taken 
 him by the throat. 
 
 The thought of coming out upon Mhtoon Pah 
 crossed his mind, but his instinct held him back. 
 He wondered desperately where Leh Shin had gone, 
 and if he would come in upon the Burman making 
 his strange prayer. Still Mhtoon Pah repeated the 
 words and swayed to and fro before the image of 
 the Buddha, and the very moments seemed to pause 
 and listen with Coryndon. The shop was close and 
 the air oppressive. Little trickles of sweat ran 
 down his neck and made channels in the stain on 
 his skin, and still Coryndon waited in tense suspense. 
 
 For nearly ten minutes Mhtoon Pah continued to 
 rock and mutter on the floor, and then he got up, 
 and, taking his lantern, went out by the door into 
 the passage. Coryndon waited for the sound of a 
 
262 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 scuffe and a fall, but none came, and he was in the 
 dark, surrounded by silence once more. 
 
 Without waiting to consider, he followed across 
 the room and saw the swinging light go down the 
 passage and disappear suddenly. It seemed to 
 Coryndon that Mhtoon Pah had disappeared, as 
 though he had gone through the wall at the end of 
 the passage, and he followed slowly. Silence locked 
 him in again, the dark, motionless silence of en- 
 closed space. 
 
 He did not dare to call out again to Leh Shin, 
 and for all that he could tell, the Chinaman might 
 have been an arm's-reach away from him in the 
 darkness, also waiting for some sudden thing to 
 happen. The dark passage was an ante-chamber to 
 some event: Coryndon's tingling nerves told him 
 that ; and he steadied himself, holding in his imagina- 
 tion in a close, resolute grip. 
 
 He had no way of judging the time that passed, 
 but he guessed that it seemed longer to him than it 
 possibly could have been; when from somewhere 
 far below him, he heard a cry and the noise of several 
 voices, all raised into indistinct clamour. 
 
 "More than one man," he thought, as his heart 
 beat quickly. "More than two," he added, in won- 
 der as he strained in the effort of listening. 
 
 The noise died out, and one low wail, continuous 
 and plaintive, filled the blank of dark silence. Coryn- 
 don felt for his matches, and knelt on the floor, feel- 
 ing before him with his hands. The crying had 
 ceased, and he touched the edge of a step. A long, 
 steep flight began just under his hand. 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 263 
 
 He leaned back and held the match-box in his 
 hand, Icnowing that he could not venture the descent 
 in the dark, and as he took out a match a new sound 
 caught his ear. A man was running in the dark. He 
 heard him stumble over the lower steps as he panted 
 fiercely and he broke into a cry as he ran, a strange, 
 mad, sobbing cry, and he still gasped and gave out 
 his wordless wail as he tore past Coryndon and on 
 along the passage and into the shop. 
 
 Cor3mdon heard the door bang behind him, he 
 heard the sound of some heavy thing being dragged 
 before it. The footsteps and the voice were not 
 those of Leh Shin, and Coryndon knew that Mhtoon 
 Pah had fled like a man pursued by devils, and had 
 barricaded himself in. 
 
 For a moment Coryndon paused, and then lighted 
 a match. Close under his feet was the perilous 
 edge of a staircase leading sheer down into a 
 well-like depth of blackness. A thin scream came up 
 to him, and without waiting to consider, he ran down 
 quickly. At the bottom he found Mhtoon Pah's 
 overturned lantern, and relighting it, he followed 
 the intermittent call of fear that echoed through the 
 damp, cavernous place he found himself in, 
 
 A closed door stood at the end of a narrow pas- 
 sage, and from the further side of the door a stifled 
 sound of terror came persistently. Leh Shin sat in 
 a huddled heap against the door, and Coryndon 
 stooped over him, throwing the light from the lan- 
 tern he carried upon him. 
 
 "I looked into his eyes," said the Chinaman, in a 
 
264 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 weak voice, "and once more he overcame me. His 
 knife rent my arm, and I fell as though dead." 
 
 Coryndon supported him to his feet. His mind 
 was working quickly. 
 
 "Canst thou stand by thyself?" he asked impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 The Chinaman gave a nod of assent, and Coryn- 
 don hammered on the door, throwing all his weight 
 against it, until it cracked and fell inwards under the 
 nervous force of his slight frame. 
 
 What Coryndon expected to see, he did not know. 
 He was following his natural instinct when he threw 
 aside the chase and capture of Mhtoon Pah and 
 burst into the cellar-room. It was small and dose, 
 and smelt of the foul, fruity atmosphere of mildew. 
 The ceiling was low, and crouching in one corner was 
 a small boy, clad only in a loin-cloth, who stared at 
 them and screamed with fear. 
 
 "The Chinamen, the Chinamen 1" he shrieked. 
 "Mhtoon Pah, the Chinamen." 
 
 "Absalom," the name came to Coryndon's lips, as 
 he stood staring at him. "My God, it must be Ab- 
 salom." 
 
 He had spoken in English before he had time to 
 think, and he turned to see if his self-betrayal had 
 struck upon the confused brain of Leh Shin, but 
 Leh Shin knew nothing and saw nothing but the face 
 of the boy his enemy loved. He had placed the 
 lamp on the floor and was feeling for his dagger, 
 his eyes fascinated and his lips working soundlessly. 
 
 Coryndon caught him by the shoulder and 
 snatched his knife from his hand. 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 265 
 
 "Fool," he said. "Wouldst thou ruin all at the 
 end? Listen closely and attend to me. Now is the 
 moment to cry for the police. Thine enemy is in a 
 close net; show me swiftly the way by which I may 
 go out of this house, and sit thou here and stir not, 
 neither cry out nor speak until thou hearest the po- 
 lice. By the way I go out will I leave the door open, 
 and some will enter there, and others at the front 
 of the house." 
 
 He turned to look at the boy, who pointed at the 
 Chinaman and continued to shriek for Mhtoon Pah. 
 It was no moment for hesitation, though Coryndon's 
 thoughts went to the shop and the front door. By 
 that door Mhtoon Pah might already have escaped, 
 but even allowing for this, there was time to catch 
 him again. He followed the way pointed out by 
 the shaking hand of Leh Shin. 
 
 "If thou fail in aught that I have told thee, or if 
 the boy escape or suffer under thy hand, then is thine 
 end also come," he said, as he stood for a moment 
 in the aperture that led into a waste place at the back 
 of the house; and then Coryndon ran through the 
 night. 
 
 The rain had come on, teeming, relentless rain 
 that fell in pitiless sheets out of a black sky. The 
 roads ran with liquid mud and the stones cut Coryn- 
 don's bare feet, but he ran on, his lungs aching and 
 his throat dry. It is not easy to think with the 
 blood hammering in the pulses and the breath com- 
 ing short through gasping lungs, but Coryndon kept 
 his mind fixed upon one idea with steady determina- 
 tion. His object was to get into the house unno- 
 
266 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 ticed, and to awake Hartley without betraying him- 
 seli: to the servants. 
 
 Hartley's bungalow was closed for the night, and 
 the Durwan slept rolled in a blanket in a corner of 
 the veranda. Coryndon held his sobbing breath and 
 crept along the shadows, watching the man closely 
 until the danger zone was passed, and then he ran 
 on around the sharp angle of the house and dived 
 into Hartley's room. In the centre stood the bed, 
 draped in the ghostly outlines of white mosquito- 
 curtains, and Coryndon walked lightly over the mat- 
 ted floor and shook the bed gently. Hartley stirred 
 but did not wake, and Coryndon called his name and 
 continued to call it in a low whisper. The Head of 
 the Police stirred again and then sat up suddenly and 
 answered Coryndon in the same low undertone. 
 
 "Get into your clothes quickly, while I tell you 
 what has happened," said Coryndon, sitting low in 
 the shadow of the bed, and while Hartley dressed 
 he told him the details shortly and clearly. 
 
 The bungalow was still in darkness, and, with a 
 candle in his hand to light him. Hartley went into 
 his office and rang up the Paradise Street Police Sta- 
 tion. When he came back Coryndon was standing 
 looking through a comer of a raised chick. 
 
 "The Durwan is awake," he said, without turn- 
 ing his head. "Call him round to the front, other- 
 wise he may see me." 
 
 "Come on, come on, man," said Hartley impa- 
 tiently, "there is no time to lose." 
 
 Coryndon turned and smiled at him. 
 
 "This is where I go out of the case," he, said. "I 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 267 
 
 shall be back in time for breakfast to-morrow," and 
 without waiting to argue the point he dived out into 
 the waning darkness of the night, leaving Hartley 
 looking helplessly after him. 
 
XXIV 
 
 IN WHICH A WOODEN IMAGE POINTS FOR THE LAST 
 
 TIME 
 
 BEFORE the Burman left Leh Shin in charge 
 of Absalom, he had pinned the Chinaman by 
 the arms and spoken to him in strange, strong words 
 that scorched clear across the chaos in his mind and 
 made him understand a hidden thing. The fact 
 that this man was not a mad convict, but a member 
 of the great secret society who tracked the guilty, 
 almost stunned the Chinaman, who knew and un- 
 derstood the Immense power of secret societies. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah might be driving wildly along a road 
 leading out of Mangadone, and though one old 
 Chinaman and a mad Burman could not stop him, 
 the long arm of police law would grab and capture 
 his gross body. Leh Shin sat quite still, content to 
 rest and consider this. Telegrams flashed messages 
 under the great bidding of authority, men sprang 
 armed from stations in every village, the close grip 
 of fate was not more close than the grasp of the 
 awakened machinery of justice, and In the centre of 
 Its power Mhtoon Pah was helpless as a fly in the 
 web of a spider. 
 
 "He travels fast, and fear Is sitting on his shoul- 
 268 
 
A WOODEN IMAGE POINTS 269 
 
 der, for he travels to his death," he repeated over 
 and over, swaying backwards and forwards. 
 
 He had an opium pellet hidden somewhere in his 
 clothes, and he found it and turned it over his 
 tongue ; weariness and sleep conquered the pain, and 
 Leh Shin sat with his head bent forward in heavy 
 stupor. From this condition he awoke to lights and 
 noises and the sound of a file working on iron. 
 
 The police had come and Hartley was bending 
 over the boy, talking to him kindly and reassuring 
 him as far as he could. Upstairs, the heavy thud 
 of blows on the outer door of the shop echoed 
 through the house with steady, persistent sound. 
 
 Dawn had come in real earnest, and the street, 
 but lately returned from the excitements of the feast 
 at the Pagoda, was thrilled by a new and much more 
 satisfying sensation. Three blue-coated, leather- 
 belted policemen were on the top of the steps that 
 led to the door of the curio shop, forcing it in. The 
 heavy bolts held, and though the padlocked chain 
 hung idle, the door resisted all their efforts. 
 
 Hartley was down in the cellars, and his way 
 through to the shop was blocked . . . blocked by 
 the inner door which was also closed from inside, 
 and somewhere within was Mhtoon Pah. He was 
 very silent in his shop. No amount of hammering 
 called forth any response, and even when the door 
 gave way and the bolt fell clattering to the ground, 
 he did not spring out. 
 
 People had sometimes wondered at the curious 
 destiny of the wooden man. He had been there so 
 long and had done his duty so faithfully. In rain 
 
270 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 or shine alike, he had always been in the street, eter- 
 nally bowing the passers up the steps. Americans 
 had tried to buy him, and had wished to take him 
 home to point at other free and enlightened citizens, 
 but Mhtoon Pah refused all offers of money. The 
 wooden man was faithful to him, and he in his turn 
 was, in some way, faithful to the wooden man. He 
 had been there when Mhtoon Pah was a clerk and 
 had indicated his rise, he had seen him take over 
 possession of the shop, and he had been witness to 
 many trivial things, and now he stood, the crowd 
 behind him, and pointed silently again. It seemed 
 right for him to point, but it was grotesque that he 
 still smiled and bent forward. 
 
 The closed gates of the dawn opened and let in 
 the sun, and the pale yellow light ventured across 
 the threshold where the policemen hung back, and 
 even the crowd in the street were silent. The light 
 fell on a thousand small things that reflected its 
 rays; it fell on a heavy carved box drawn across the 
 further entrance, on the swinging glass doors of the 
 open silk cupboard, on bowls of silver and bowls of 
 brass, and it fell full on the thing that of all others 
 drew the horrified eyes of the watchers. 
 
 Mhtoon Pah, the wealthy curio dealer, the shrine 
 builder, the friend of the powerful, hung from a 
 beam across the centre of the low ceiling, and 
 Mhtoon Pah was dead, strangled in a fine, silk scarf. 
 Fine, strong silk made only by certain lake-dwellers 
 in a wild place just across the Shan frontier. 
 
 Perhaps the destiny which Shiraz believed a man 
 may not escape, be he as fleet as a flying stag, had 
 
A WOODEN IMAGE POINTS 271 
 
 caught up with him, and it was not without reason 
 that the image had pointed at something not there 
 years ago, not there when youth was there, and hope 
 and love, and when Leh Shin had lived and been 
 happy there, but to come, certainly and surely to 
 come. 
 
 Hartley and Coryndon sat long over their break- 
 fast. Coryndon's face was strained and tired, and 
 heavy lines of fatigue were marked under his dark 
 eyes. 
 
 "The boy was not In a condition to give any lucid 
 explanation when I brought him back," said Hart- 
 ley, "so I left him until we could both hear his story 
 together." He called to his Bearer and gave in- 
 structions for the boy to be brought in. 
 
 Coryndon nodded silently; his eyes lit up with in- 
 terest and all his listlessness vanished as he watched 
 the door. 
 
 Following Hartley's Bearer, a small, thin boy 
 came into the room, dressed in a white suit, with 
 a tight white pugaree folded round his head. He 
 shrank nervously at every sound, and when he 
 salaamed to Hartley and Coryndon his face worked 
 as though he was going to burst into tears. 
 
 "You have nothing to be afraid of," said Hartley 
 kindly. "Just tell the whole truth, and explain how 
 it was that you came to be shut up in the curio 
 shop." 
 
 The boy's eyes grew less terrified, and he began 
 to speak in a low, mumbling voice. He began in 
 
272 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 the middle of the account, and Hartley gently but 
 finnly pushed him back to the beginning. 
 
 "Start with the story of the lacquer bowl," he 
 said, talking very slowly and clearly. "We want to 
 hear what happened about that first." 
 
 The mention of the subject of lacquer threw Ab- 
 salom once more into a state of panic, but as his 
 story progressed he became more sure of himself, 
 and looked up, forgetting his fear in the excitement 
 of having a really remarkable story to tell, that was 
 listened to by Sahibs with intent interest. 
 
 In tearful, stumbling words he admitted that he 
 and Leh Shin's assistant had been friends, and that 
 those evil communications that corrupt not only good 
 manners but good morals had worked with disas- 
 trous results upon him. With his brown knuckles 
 to his protruding eyes, he admitted, further, that he 
 had stolen the gold lacquer bowl from the drugged 
 and drunken seaman, and that Leh Shin's assistant 
 had plundered him of more than half his rightful 
 share of the profit. What remained over, he pro- 
 tested, he intended to ^ve to the "Missen," testify- 
 ing to the fact that his conscience was causing him 
 uneasiness and that his natural superstition made him 
 adopt means, not unknown to other financiers, of 
 squaring things by a donation to a charitable object. 
 
 He went on to explain that Mhtoon Pah had re- 
 quired him to come back late by an unfrequented al- 
 ley, from where his master himself had admitted him 
 into the basement of the shop. There was nothing 
 altogether imusual about this, it appeared, as 
 Mhtoon Pah was very strange in his ways at times. 
 
A WOODEN IMAGE POINTS 273 
 
 He cooked his own food for fear of poison, and was 
 constantly suspecting some indefinite enemy of de- 
 signs upon his life. What was unusual was the fact 
 that he had been taken at once into the small cell, 
 and that, once there, Mhtoon Pah had behaved like 
 a madman. 
 
 Absalom could recall no coherent account of what 
 the curio dealer had told him. He had spoken to 
 him of murder, and told him that the Chinamen in 
 the Quarter, headed by Leh Shin, were looking for 
 him to kill him, and that, for his safety, he must 
 remain hidden away. Mhtoon Pah told him that he 
 would protect him, and that he would produce evi- 
 dence to have Leh Shin hanged, and that once he was 
 dead he would then emerge again, but not until then. 
 He told him how Chinamen killed their victims, and 
 his fears and terrors communicated themselves to 
 the boy, who delivered himself up to bondage with- 
 out resistance. 
 
 For weeks Absalom dragged out a miserable ex- 
 istence, loose when Mhtoon Pah was in the shop, 
 but chained to the wall whenever he went out, and 
 only for an hour after midnight was the boy ever 
 allowed to emerge into the dark, waste garden at 
 the back of the house. The rest of the time was 
 spent in the cell, and Absalom broke into incoherent 
 wailing as he called Hartley and Coryndon to wit- 
 ness that it had been a hard life. 
 
 As the end of his story approached, Absalom 
 grew more dramatic and quoted the parting words 
 of Mhtoon Pah before he went out to attend the 
 Pwe at the Pagoda. 
 
274 THE POINTING MAN 
 
 "I leave thee in fear," said he, "for thou art the 
 apple of my eye, O Absalom, and when I am gone 
 some calamity may befall. From whence it comes 
 I know not, but as men look at the heaped clouds 
 behind the hills and say, 'Lo, it will soon fall in rain,' 
 so does my heart look out and observe darkness, and 
 I am iU-sati«fied to quit this house." 
 
 His words rang in the mind of the boy, shut into 
 the stifling darkness below the ground, and he re- 
 membered that he cried out for help, not once but 
 over and over again, and that his cries were even- 
 tually answered by the voice of Leh Shin, who had 
 called him a child of vipers and threatened to enter 
 and break him against the wall as he would a plan- 
 tain. After that Absalom had refrained from cry- 
 ing out, and had waited silently expecting the door 
 to open and admit Leh Shin and his last moment si- 
 multaneously. Upon the silence came the sounds of 
 scuffling and hoarse cries, and it seemed to Absalom 
 that Leh Shin had called out that he had already cut 
 the heart from his ribs, and was about to force it 
 down Mhtoon Pah's throat, and then nothing was 
 very clear until voices and lights roused him from 
 stupor to fresh terror and alarm. 
 
 He knew that the door had been unlocked and 
 that a light travelled in, held by a strange Burman, 
 and that his terror of Leh Shin had made him see 
 things strangely, as though from a long way off; 
 until, at the last, the police had come and knocked 
 the chain off his leg, and someone had told him that 
 his master was dead and had been found han^ng 
 in the shop. 
 
A WOODEN IMAGE POINTS 275. 
 
 Absalom's face quivered and he began to whim- 
 per. 
 
 "And now my master is dead, and never in Man> 
 gadone shall I find such another who will care for 
 me and give me the pleasant life in Paradise Street." 
 
 Hartley handed the boy some money. 
 
 "Take him away," he said to the Bearer. "Youi 
 have told your story very well, Absalom." 
 
 He looked across at Coryndon when the room was 
 empty, but Coryndon was fiddling with some crumbs 
 at the edge of the table. 
 
 "Madness is the real explanation, I suppose," he 
 said tentatively. "Madness and obsession." 
 
 "Obsession," echoed Coryndon. "That word ex- 
 plains almost every inexplicable act in life." He 
 took up a knife and held it level on his palm. "There 
 you have the normal condition, but once one end 
 swings up you get Genius and all the Arts, or mad- 
 ness and crime and the obsession of one idea: one 
 definite, over-mastering idea that drives every force 
 harnessed to its car." 
 
 He got up and stretched his arms, and walked out 
 through the veranda into his room, where Shiraz 
 was folding his clothes and laying them in an open 
 portmanteau. The old servant stood up and made 
 a low salaam to his master. 
 
 "When the sun is down the wise traveller hurries 
 to the Serai," Coryndon said to him. "I leave to- 
 night for Madras, Shiraz, and you with me." 
 
 "The end of all things is just, Huzoor," replied 
 the old man, a strange light of reflection in his dim 
 pebble-like eyes. "Is it not written that none may 
 
276 ■ THE POINTING MAN 
 
 rise so high, or plunge so deep, that he does not fol- 
 low the hidden path to the hidden end? For like a 
 wind that goes and returns never, or the shadow of 
 a cloud passmg over the desert, is the destiny of a 
 
GLOSSARY 
 
 Almirah A press 
 
 Babu A clerk 
 
 Butti : Lamp 
 
 Charpoy Fed 
 
 Chota haeiri (Little breakfast) Early morn- 
 ing tea 
 
 Dhobie Washerman 
 
 Durwan Watchman 
 
 Ghee Butter 
 
 Gharry Cab 
 
 Gaudama Buddha 
 
 Htee Topmost pinnacle 
 
 Hypongyi Priests 
 
 Inshallah, Huzoor God give you fortune, Prince 
 
 Joss A god 
 
 Khitmutghar Footman 
 
 Loongyi Petticoat 
 
 Napi Rotten fish 
 
 Nats Tree spirits 
 
 Pani walla Water carrier 
 
 Pwe Feast 
 
 Serai Rest house 
 
 Sirkar Government 
 
 Syce Groom 
 
 Tatnasha A show 
 
 Thahin Master 
 
 Topi Hat 
 
 277