Chapter 15

He looked upon the Burman as a harmless lunatic, and he only half-believed that he had ever been guilty of the act that had ended in a term of imprisonment in the Andaman Islands, but in one moment he realized that it might all be true and that he himself was possibly singled out as the next victim.

In one silent moment he found himself pinned in his corner, the Burman squatting in front of him, a long knife which he had never seen before pointing at his throat with horrible, determined persistency.

He opened his mouth and thought to cry out for help, but the Burman leaned forward and warned him that if he did so, his last minute had inevitably come.

"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 assistant, 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 before 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 inconvenience 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 limitations of fact, and confessed that he and Absalom had been friends and that he had never killed anything except a chicken, and once a dog that was too young to bite his hand.

The details of the story came out at long intervals, 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 off hours.

The desire for money, so strong in the Chinaman, 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 eventually 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 assistant had the good fortune to overhear the preliminaries of the sale, and he immediately saw his opportunity, 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 seaman for the bowl. By this time Absalom's gambling 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 hundred 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 graduate could lull an uneasy conscience, and as far as Coryndon could judge, Absalom was not troubled by any warnings from that silent 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 put 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, offered 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 Absalom 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 expected to receive.

He dwelt with some pride upon the fact, and his vanity in this particular almost conquered his fear of the Afghan blade that 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 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 momentary forgetfulness of the narrative to the immediate 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 master."

"It is a poor tale, a paltry tale," said the Burman, in tones of disgust. "One that hardly requites 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 hanging among the other goods dependent from the ceiling, 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 necessary patience that is part of all close, careful search, and while he waited, he turned over the evidence 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 another 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 probability be found, and the whole mystery made clear.

He leaned against the wall and watched the throbbing 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 Pah 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 complete denial of his story could be set against it, Hartley 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 as it stood; he was absolved from any hint of professional 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 definite.

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 nothing in all its days to bring it into touch with Rydal and Rydal's tragedy--Rydal whom Coryndon 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 decides 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 crept out again and formed into marauding expeditions 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 expected to see had gone. At length his eyes wandered 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 anything 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 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 Burman 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 sensitive 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 no 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."

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 special 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 overreached 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 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 gesture. "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 Punjabi?"

"I have no mind for tales," said Leh Shin, striking 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 it. He drew his own wits 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 success, and it was necessary to make sure before attempting 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 _Pwé_ 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 inhabitants 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 _Pwé_, 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 a bundle of keys from his dispatch-box and tied them to the waist of his _loongyi_.

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. Everywhere 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 night will be fine, for I have greatly propitiated 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. 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 summit of his power. The _Hypongyis_ lauded him openly in the streets, and he was giving a feast at the Temple at which the poorest would not be forgotten.

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 dwindled. 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 the front of the house and locked the clamped padlock. 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 confluent streets flowed on up Paradise Street, and gradually only the maimed and the aged, or the impossibly youthful, were left behind, to hear of the wonders afterwards at secondhand, a secondhand 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 thousand candles flamed before every shrine; even the oldest and most neglected had its ring of light. Small coloured lamps dotted the outlines of some of the booths, and the whole spectacle presented a moving 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 off. It became a matter for compliment and congratulation, and Mhtoon Pah accepted his friends' flattery without pride. He was a good man, a benefactor, a shrine-builder who followed "the Way" with zeal and fervour, and besides, he had propitiated _Nats_; _Nats_ who blew up storms, caused earthquakes and were evilly disposed towards men.