The Pointing Man Part 6

Joicey had just poured himself out a gla.s.s of port, and was raising it to his lips as Hartley spoke, and the hand that held the gla.s.s jerked slightly, splas.h.i.+ng a little of the wine on to the front of his white s.h.i.+rt. Joicey did not set the gla.s.s 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.

"I've had insomnia lately," he said, after a perceptible 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 Hartley 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 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, and 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 s.h.i.+n was officially watched, and Leh s.h.i.+n's a.s.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.

Atkins, the rector of St. Jude's bungalow companion, was a dry little man, adhering to simple facts, and neither a sensationalist nor an alarmist; therefore 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 profession; besides which he was religious, a non-smoker, a teetotaller, and particular upon these points.

Being but little in the habit of going into Mangadone 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gra.s.s, 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 confidential 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 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 Hartley. "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 a week ago."

"And something of the same nature has occurred since?"

Atkins dried his hands with his handkerchief.

"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 remember, '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 complain 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 Atkins 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 burning, his room is at the far end from mine, and I stood there, s.h.i.+vering 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 the man laughed. I can't describe his laugh; it was the most d.a.m.nable thing I ever listened to, and I thought of running in, but something stopped me, G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+vered. "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 policeman 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 blackmailing 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 decision. "And as for your opinion of Heath--well, it strikes me as curious that a man of good character should be a mark for blackmail."