The Pointing Man

ll 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

oons by night, but they were pale and dim by

was shot back, and Leh Shin's long neck stretched itself out towards 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 him like the garments of Death itself. Hartley drew back a step, for the smell of napi and oni

ure depicted on rice-paper and stuck against the wall. It was hard to believe that it was day outside, so heavy was the darkness, and it was a few moments before Hartley's eyes became accustomed to the sudden change. Second-hand clothes hung on pegs around the room, and all kinds o

small pig eyes. He was chewing something slowly, turning it about and about inside a small, narrow slit of a mouth, and his whole expression was cunning and evil. Leh Shin followed Hartley's glance and saw the boy, and the sight of him seemed to recall him to actual life, for

impressed him unpleasantly. Everything he did was offensive, and his whole suggestion loathsome. Hartley was

k you a few questions. Do yo

that he sold anything

looking for a bowl of gold lacquer, and t

othing. Moreover, he knew nothing of July the twenty-nint

ley. "You may be called upon to give an account of your

led to assist his master's memory. He spoke in a high chirping voice, and looked at Hartley with angry eyes as he asserted that his master had been ill upon t

ley, speaking to Leh Shin, "and satisfy me that th

ed that he could prove it, that he coul

o go. "So far as I know, you are an honest dealer, Leh Shin, and I am quite ready to believ

ken portmanteaux, the relics of art, and the animal smell, and Hartley was out in the street. He was pretty secure in the belief that Leh Shin had not seen the boy, and that he knew nothing of the gold lacquer bowl, but he also believed that Mhtoon Pah had be

t his assistant. Hartley wished he had not seen him, he wished that he had remained in ignorance of his personality. He thought of him in

y. Hartley returned to other matters and put the case on one side for the moment. On his way back for luncheon he looked in at Mhtoon Pah's shop. He had intended to pass, but the sight of the little wooden man ushering him up

wn. "Now, Mhtoon Pah, are you quite sure that

eet, and he pushed through the crowd like a rogue elephant going through a rice crop. I have seen the Reverend walking before, and he walked slowly, he spoke with the Babus from the Baptist mission, but th

m come back? Mr

y at Hartley, and remained in a stat

Pagoda, Thakin. I am building a shrine there, and shall thereby acquire much merit. I did

ight

ore. "It is Leh Shin, the Chinaman," he said, violently. "Let it be known to you, Thakin, they eat strange mea

Hartley, firmly. "I want to hear nothing about it." He got up and loo

Shin, an evil man. The Lady Sahib will have to wait; n

me definite theory that left Mr. Heath outside the ring that he proposed to draw around his subject

onnived at his escape, he would be muzzled, but there was nothing to show that Absalom had ever broken the law. His employer, Mhtoon Pah, was in

d along a street on soundless feet, and Hartley felt an eage

d trailing creepers, and the grass grew into the red drive that curved in a half-circle from one rickety gate to another. He came up quietly on the soft, wet clay, and looked up at the house before he called for the bearer,

tley, "and tell the Padré

Sahib is

d the tray like a

e. Go and tell your master th

returned again, the t

nd without waiting for any more Hartley t

nd as he glanced back at the bungalow, a curtain in an upper

face to face with Atkins, Heath's bung

on the Padré," he said, ca

He told me he was due at a meeting at half-past five, and that

e it," said H

he felt the weather, and he certainly seems ill. I don't believe the poor

oice grew sympathetic. "Ha

accurate. "I think it began about the night afte

quarters with his whip. "I'm sorry I missed Heath, as

heerfully, "and probably he'll

ice officer, and he set to work upon

ch and that it is deliberately withheld. Heath stood between him and elucidation, and the more firmly the clergyman he

as he drove through the Cantonme

handed it over to his boy as he

?" he said, in his bris

aid the boy, with an immovable f

Hartley just now, and

et of paper laid out on th

a little stiffly. "It is not a convenient hour

r that brought him here, and I said that I would give you h

d that,

d unnatural that Atkins

se I was

come bullying and blustering, he must write and make an appointment. I have every r

inent?" Atkins'

pertinent, or bearing upon any subje

and walked towards the window,

hingly. "But at the same time, I can't understand y

n and gripped it as he had gripped

he said, in a low, hoarse voice. "N

he did not like, and he registered a mental vow to let the subject drop, so far as he, a lieutenant in Hi