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A drop in the temperature had driven the sleepers who usually preferred the open to the closeness of walls, within, and the whole double row of houses slept with gaping windows and open doors. Mhtoon Pah's curio shop was entirely closed. Every window had outer shutters fastened, and no gleam of light showed anywhere, up or down the high narrow front.
Steps came up the staircase, steps that stumbled a little, and if Heath had possessed Mhtoon Pah's art of reading the walk of his fellow creatures, he would have known that he might expect a woman and not a man. "Mr. Heath," a low voice called in the passage, and Heath's tension relaxed, giving place to surprise.
Mhtoon Pah bowed low, as befitted the dignity of his guest, who was, after all, a Hypongyi, even though he wore no yellow robes. "It is unknown," he said, in a heavy voice. "The Reverend himself might know, since the Reverend saw my little Absalom that night." "You must have suspicions?" Mhtoon Pah's face worked violently. "Leh Shin," he whispered. "Look there for what is left."
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.
Every one of them was stored there just as surely as Mhtoon Pah's ivories and carved screens and silks were stored safe against the encroachment of damp and must. His old self might even be somewhere in the silent house, and it takes a special quality of courage for a man to return and walk through a doorway into the long past.
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.
The rains had lashed the country for days, and even the trees that grew in among the houses of Paradise Street were fresh and green, though one of the hot, burning breaks of blue sky and glaring sunlight had baked the road into Indian-red dust once more, and the interior of Mhtoon Pah's curio shop was heavy with stale scents and dark shadows that crept out as the gloom of evening settled in upon it.
He went also to Mhtoon Pah's shop, but came away without discovering anything. Into the ears of Hartley, Head of the Police, the Burman raged and screamed his passionate hate, because he believed it promoted his object; but to the Punjabi he was smooth and complaisant, and refused to be drawn into any admission.
He, also, whoever he was, had not Mhtoon Pah's leisure to regard the street, and he went on with a steady, quick walk which took him out on to the wharf, and from the wharf along a waste place where the tram lines ceased, and away from there towards a cluster of lights in a house close over the dark river itself.
"Come, then," said the police officer abruptly, "who did you see? Did you, for instance, see the Christian boy, Absalom, Mhtoon Pah's assistant?" The Rev. Francis Heath made no answer. "Did you see him?" "I will not answer any further questions, but since you ask me, I did see the boy." "Thank you, Heath; that took some getting at.
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