Read Ebook: The Pointing Man: A Burmese Mystery by Douie Marjorie

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Ebook has 1292 lines and 72533 words, and 26 pages

"Who can tell?" said the Rev. Francis Heath.

"He'd better keep out of the way," continued 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.

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 full 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 everywhere. Mrs. Wilder, who knew exactly who to treat with distant condescension and who to ignore entirely, invariably included him in her intimate dinners, and the Chief Commissioner, also a bachelor, invited him frequently 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, unlikely 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 writing-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 imploring 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.

"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 feelings as an animal.

The boy reappeared after a pause, bearing a message to the effect that Mhtoon Pah begged an immediate 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 rambling, but what he told was to the effect that his boy, Absalom, had disappeared and could not be found.

"What inquiries have you made?"

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?"

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.

"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?"

"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 evidence 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, 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 clergyman'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.

"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 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 protuberant 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. Fitzgibbon, 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 talking for a little, glad to shake off his feeling of depression. 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."

"I'm all right," Joicey spoke absently. "It's this infernally stuffy weather, and the evenings."

"Dine with me on Saturday," suggested Hartley, "I've seen very little of you just lately."

Joicey looked up and nodded.

"I'll come," he said, laconically, and Hartley, finishing his drink, went up the staircase.

"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."

Hartley looked at him; there was something undeniably 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 trying 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 sunset?"

"I may have done so. I have several parishioners along the river bank."

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