The Pointing Man Part 14

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 disappearance of the boy Absalom, the grief and frantic 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 PaG.o.da. 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 Hartley, 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-ninth, but Joicey is ill, and he said he wasn't in Mangadone 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 connection 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 considers it likely that the Chinaman, Leh s.h.i.+n, put it there, but I have absolutely nothing to connect Leh s.h.i.+n 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 G.o.d knows what, is simply horrible," he said in a rough, pained voice. "I've done my share of work, Coryndon, and I've 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 weariness in its sound, weariness or impatience.

"What you have told me involves three princ.i.p.als, and a score of others." He was counting as he spoke. "Any one of them may be the man you are looking for, only circ.u.mstances indicate one in particular. You are satisfied that you have got the line. I could not confidently say that you have, unless I had been working the case myself, and had followed 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 leaning back in his chair, his eyes on a little spiral of smoke that circled up from his cigarette.

"I wish that d.a.m.ned 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 instantaneous smile, it pa.s.sed 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 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, "otherwise, 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 shooting 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 different, 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 tumblers and a decanter of whisky stood on a tray, and, pouring himself out a gla.s.s 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 report."

Coryndon nodded his head, and, opening the piano, 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 lying under his mosquito-curtains, oblivious to the world.

Coryndon's servant, s.h.i.+raz, was squatting across the door that led into the veranda when his master 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 s.p.a.ce 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 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 useful name to take first.

"Joicey, the Banker, is a man of no importance," he murmured to himself, and again he said, "Joicey the Banker."