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Americans had tried to buy him, and had wished to take him home to point at other free and enlightened citizens, but Mhtoon Pah refused all offers of money. The wooden man was faithful to him, and he in his turn was, in some way, faithful to the wooden man.
He lighted them one by one, and put each one down on the floor very slowly and carefully, and when he had finished he turned round. "Mhtoon Pah is the man who has the curio shop?" he asked. "The very same. It gives you some idea of his percentage on sales, what?" Coryndon joined in his laugh, and they went out again into the street of sanctity.
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.
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.
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.
I have seen the Reverend walking before, and he walked slowly, he spoke with the Babus from the Baptist mission, but this day," Mhtoon Pah flung his hands to the roof, "shall I forget it? This day he walked with speed, and when my little Absalom salaamed before him, he hardly stopped, which is not the habit of the Reverend." "Did you see him come back? Mr. Heath, I mean?"
A few Chinamen, who had been working at it, were putting their tools into canvas bags, preparatory to withdrawing like the remaining daylight. "This is Mhtoon Pah's edifice," said Fitzgibbon, coming to a standstill. "He doesn't seem to have spared expense, either. Shall we go in?" The shrine was not a very large one, and the entrance was like the entrance to a grotto at an Exhibition.
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.
Send me up the Mandarin's coat, Mhtoon Pah, and I will haggle another day." Heath followed her reluctantly down the steps. He wished she had not made a point of taking him in her motor, but he felt instinctively sorry for her, which fact, had she known it, would have surprised and affronted her.
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.
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