III
INDICATES A STANDPOINT COMMONLY SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE PRINCIPLES OFTHE JESUIT FATHERS
It was quite early the following morning when Hartley set out to take astroll down Paradise Street, and from there to the Chinese quarter,where Leh Shin had a small shop in a colonnade running east and west.The houses here were very different to the houses in Paradise Street.The fronts were brightened with gilt, and green and red paint daubed theentrances. Almost every third shop was a restaurant, and Hartley did notcare to think of the sort of food that was cooked and eaten within.Immense lanterns, that turned into coloured moons by night, but theywere 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, LehShin worked at nothing in particular, and sold devils as Mhtoon Pah soldthem, but without the same success. The door of his shop was closed, andHartley rapped upon it several times before he received an answer; thena bolt was shot back, and Leh Shin's long neck stretched itself outtowards the officer. He was a thin, gaunt figure, lean as the Plague,and his spare frame was clad in cheap black stuff that hung around himlike the garments of Death itself. Hartley drew back a step, for thesmell of _napi_ and onions is unpleasant even to the strongest of whitemen, and told Leh Shin to open the door wide as he wished to talk tohim. Leh Shin, with many owlish blinkings of his narrow eyes, askedHartley to come inside. The street was not a good place for talking, andHartley followed him into the shop.
It was very dark within, and a dim light fell from high skylightwindows, giving the shop something of the suggestion of a well. Countersblocked it, making entrance a matter of single file, and, in the deepgloom at the back, two candles burned before a huge, ferocious-lookingfigure depicted on rice-paper and stuck against the wall. It was hard tobelieve that it was day outside, so heavy was the darkness, and it was afew moments before Hartley's eyes became accustomed to the suddenchange. Second-hand clothes hung on pegs around the room, and all kindsof articles were jumbled together regardless of their nature. On thefloor was a litter of silk and silver goods, boxes, broken portmanteaux,ropes, baskets, and on the counter nearest the door a tiny silver cageof 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 bythe candles, was a boy, naked to the waist, and immensely stout andheavy. His long plait of hair was twisted round and round on his shavenforehead, and he stood perfectly still, watching the officer out ofsmall pig eyes. He was chewing something slowly, turning it about andabout inside a small, narrow slit of a mouth, and his whole expressionwas cunning and evil. Leh Shin followed Hartley's glance and saw theboy, and the sight of him seemed to recall him to actual life, for hespoke in words that sounded like stones knocking together and orderedhim out of the shop. The boy looked at him oddly for a moment; thenturned away, still munching, and lounged out of the room, stopping onthe threshold of a back entrance to take one more look at Hartley.
As a rule Hartley was not affected by the peculiarities of the people hedealt with, but Leh Shin's assistant impressed him unpleasantly.Everything he did was offensive, and his whole suggestion loathsome.Hartley was still thinking of him when he looked at Leh Shin, who stoodblinking before him, awaiting his words patiently.
"Now, Leh Shin, I want to ask you a few questions. Do you sell lacquerin 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 goldlacquer, 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 countdays. He had not seen the boy Absalom.
"Let me advise you to be truthful, Leh Shin," said Hartley. "You may becalled upon to give an account of yourself on the evening and night ofJuly 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, stillchewing, was recalled to assist his master's memory. He spoke in a highchirping voice, and looked at Hartley with angry eyes as he assertedthat his master had been ill upon the evening mentioned and that he hadclosed the shop early, and that he himself had gone to the nautch houseto witness a dance that had lasted until morning.
"You can prove what you say, I suppose," said Hartley, speaking to LehShin, "and satisfy me that the boy Absalom was not here, and did notcome here?"
Leh Shin, moved to sudden life, protested that he could prove it, thathe could call half Hong Kong Street to prove it.
"I don't want Hong Kong Street. I want a creditable witness," saidHartley, and he turned to go. "So far as I know, you are an honestdealer, 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 theboy returned his look for a moment, but neither of them spoke, and a fewminutes later the door was bolted from within, and they were once morealone in the shadows, with the rags, the broken portmanteaux, the relicsof art, and the animal smell, and Hartley was out in the street. He waspretty secure in the belief that Leh Shin had not seen the boy, and thathe knew nothing of the gold lacquer bowl, but he also believed thatMhtoon Pah had been far too crafty to tell the Chinaman that anyoneparticularly wanted such a treasure of art. Mhtoon Pah, or his emissary,would have priced everything in the shop down to the most maggot-eatenrag before he would have mentioned the subject of lacquer bowls.
There was no mystery connected with the bowl, but there was somethingsickening about Leh Shin's shop, and something utterly horrible abouthis assistant. Hartley wished he had not seen him, he wished that he hadremained in ignorance of his personality. He thought of him in thesweating darkness he had left, and as he thought he remembered MhtoonPah's wild, extravagant fancies, and they grew real to his mind.
It was next to impossible to discover what the truth was about LehShin's illness on the night of July the 29th, and it really did not bearvery much upon the matter, unless there was no other clue to what hadbecome of the boy. Hartley returned to other matters and put the case onone side for the moment. On his way back for luncheon he looked in atMhtoon Pah's shop. He had intended to pass, but the sight of the littlewooden man ushering him up the steps made him turn and stop and then goin. Mhtoon Pah sat on his divan in the scented gloom, very different tothe interior of Leh Shin's shop, and when he saw Hartley he struggled tohis feet and demanded news of Absalom.
"There is none yet," said Hartley, sitting down. "Now, Mhtoon Pah, areyou 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. Iread the walk of men and tell much by it. The Reverend was in a greathurry. Twice did he pull out his watch as he came along the street, andhe pushed through the crowd like a rogue elephant going through a ricecrop. I have seen the Reverend walking before, and he walked slowly, hespoke with the _Babus_ from the Baptist mission, but this day," MhtoonPah flung his hands to the roof, "shall I forget it? This day he walkedwith speed, and when my little Absalom salaamed before him, he hardlystopped, which is not the habit of the Reverend."
"Did you see him come back? Mr. Heath, I mean?"
Mhtoon Pah stood and looked curiously at Hartley, and remained in astate of suspended animation for a second.
"How could I see him come back?" he said, in a flat, expressionlessvoice. "I went to the Pagoda, _Thakin_. I am building a shrine there,and shall thereby acquire much merit. I did not see the Reverend return.Besides, he might not have come by the way of Paradise Street."
"He might not."
"It is not known," said Mhtoon Pah, shaking his head dubiously, and thenrage seemed to flare up in him once more. "It is Leh Shin, theChinaman," he said, violently. "Let it be known to you, _Thakin_, theyeat strange meats, they hold strange revels. I have heard
things--" helowered his voice. "I have been told of how they slay."
"Then keep the information to yourself, unless you can prove it," saidHartley, firmly. "I want to hear nothing about it." He got up and lookedaround 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 evilman. 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 themore he tried to work out some definite theory that left Mr. Heathoutside the ring that he proposed to draw around his subject, the morehe appeared on the horizon of his mind, always walking quickly andlooking at his watch.
Through lunch he went over the facts and faced the Heath questionsquarely, considering that if Heath knew that the boy was in trouble,and had connived at his escape, he would be muzzled, but there wasnothing to show that Absalom had ever broken the law. His employer,Mhtoon Pah, was in despair at his disappearance, his record wasblameless, and he had been entrusted with the deal in lacquer to becarried out the following morning.
Looking for Absalom was like tracing a shadow that has passed along astreet on soundless feet, and Hartley felt an eager determination seizehim to catch up with this flying wraith.
Still with the same idea in his mind, he drove along the principalroads in his buggy, directing his way towards the bungalow where theRector of St. Jude's lived with Atkins, the Sapper. The house was drapedin climbing and trailing creepers, and the grass grew into the red drivethat curved in a half-circle from one rickety gate to another. He cameup quietly on the soft, wet clay, and looked up at the house before hecalled for the bearer, and as he looked up he saw a face disappearquickly from behind a window. After a few minutes the boy came runningdown a flight of steps from the back, and hurried in to get a tray,which he held out for the customary card.
"Take that away," said Hartley, "and tell the Padre Sahib that I mustsee 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 businessis important."
After a moment the boy returned again, the tray still in his hand.
"Gone out, Sahib," he said, resolutely, and without waiting for any moreHartley turned the pony's head and drove out slowly.
Twice in two days Heath had lied, to his certain knowledge, and as heglanced back at the bungalow, a curtain in an upper window movedslightly as though it had been dropped in haste.
Just as he turned into the road he came face to face with Atkins,Heath's bungalow companion, and he pulled up short.
"I've been trying to call on the Padre," he said, carelessly, "but hewas out."
"Out," said Atkins, in a tone of surprise. "Why, that is odd. He told mehe was due at a meeting at half-past five, and that he wasn't going outuntil 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 believethe poor devil sleeps at all. Whenever I wake, I can see his light inthe passage."
"That is bad," Hartley's voice grew sympathetic. "Has he been long likethis?"
"Not long," said Atkins, who was constitutionally accurate. "I think itbegan about the night after the thunder-storm, but I can't say forcertain."
"Well, I won't keep you." Hartley touched the pony's quarters with hiswhip. "I'm sorry I missed Heath, as I wanted to see him about somethingrather important."
"I'll tell him," said Atkins, cheerfully, "and probably he'll look youup at your own house."
"Will he, I wonder?" thought the police officer, and he set to work uponthe treadmill of his thoughts again.
There is nothing in the world so tantalizing, and so hard to bear, asthe conviction that knowledge is just within reach and that it isdeliberately withheld. Heath stood between him and elucidation, and themore firmly the clergyman held his ground, and the more definitely heblocked the path, the more sure Hartley became that he did so of setpurpose.
"But _why_, _why_?" he asked himself, as he drove through the Cantonmenttowards Mrs. Wilder's bungalow.
Atkins got off his bicycle and handed it over to his boy as he arrivedat 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; andAtkins went up quickly.
"Hallo, 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-tablebefore him.
"I did not feel up to seeing Hartley," he said, a little stiffly. "It isnot a convenient hour for callers, so I availed myself of an excuse."
"He told me to tell you that it was rather a pressing matter thatbrought him here, and I said that I would give you his message, and thatyou would probably go round to see him."
"You said that, Atkins?"
His face was so drawn and unnatural that Atkins looked at him insurprise.
"I suppose I was right?"
"If Hartley wants to see me," said Heath, in a loud, angry voice, "or ifhe wants to come bullying and blustering, he must write and make anappointment. I have every right to protect myself from a man who askspersonal and most impertinent questions."
"Hartley, impertinent?" Atkins' eyes grew round.
"When I say impertinent, I mean not pertinent, or bearing upon anysubject that I intend to discuss with him."
The Rev. Francis Heath got up and walked towards the window, turning hisback upon the room.
"I don't mix in social politics," said Atkins, soothingly. "But at thesame time, I can't understand you, Heath. What the devil does Hartleywant to know?"
The clergyman caught at the curtain and gripped it as he had gripped theback 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 themanner of the Rev. Francis Heath that he did not like, and he registereda mental vow to let the subject drop, so far as he, a lieutenant in HisMajesty's Royal Engineers, was concerned, and never to allude to it,either for "fear or favour," again.
The Pointing Man Page 3