The Pointing Man Page 10

  X

  IN WHICH CRAVEN JOICEY IS OVERCOME BY A SUDDEN INDISPOSITION, ANDHARTLEY, WITHOUT LOOKING FOR HIM, FINDS THE MAN HE WANTED

  It seemed to Hartley that Fate had dealt very hardly with him. He wasinterested in the case of the boy Absalom, and he felt that thepossibility of clearing it up was well within reach, and then he foundhimself face to face with an unpleasant and painful duty.

  All his gregarious sociable nature cried out against any act that wouldcause a scandal in Mangadone, the magnitude of which he could hardlygauge but only guess at; and yet, wherever he went, the thought hauntedhim. His feelings gave him no rest, and he remained inactive andlistless for several days after his ride with Mrs. Wilder. If she hadtold him that she implored him personally to drop the case he could nothave felt more certain that she desired him to do so. She workedindirectly upon his feelings, a much surer way with some natures than adirect appeal, and the thought brought something akin to misery into themind and heart of the police officer.

  Absalom had gone, leaving no visible footprint to indicate whither hehad vanished, but the inexorable detail of circumstance aftercircumstance led on to a very definite conclusion. The wooden figureoutside the curio dealer's shop pointed up his master's steps, and didno one any wrong, but the awful fixed finger of changeless factindicated the creeper-covered bungalow of the Rev. Francis Heath.

  Hartley sat in his room, his elbows on the writing-table, and stared outbefore him. A sluicing shower had come up suddenly, obscuring all thebrightness of the day, and the eaves of the veranda dripped mournfullywith a sound like the patter of a thousand tiny feet; the patter soundedlike the falling of tears, and he wondered if Heath, too, listened tothe light persistent noise, and read into it the footsteps of departinghopes and lost ideals, or merely all the terrible monotonous detail thatpreceded an act that was a crime.

  Hartley had dealt considerably with criminal cases, but never withanything the least like the case of the boy Absalom, and thespeculations that came across his mind were new to him. He realized thata criminal of the class of the Rev. Francis Heath is a criminal who isdriven slowly, inch by inch, into action, and each inch given only atthe cost of blood and tears. It was little short of ghastly to considerwhat Heath must have gone through and suffered, and what he still mustsuffer, and must continue to suffer as he went along the dark lonelinessof the awful road into which he had turned.

  People who have pity and to spare for the murdered body, or for the dupewho has suffered plunder, think very little of the agony of mind andthe horror of the man who has held a good position, secure and honoured,and who falls into the bottomless abyss of crime and detection. Hartleyhad never considered it before. He was on the side of law and order, andhe was incapable of even dimly visualizing any condition of affairs thatcould force him into illegal action, and yet he felt in the darknessafter some comprehension of the mind of the Rector of St. Jude's ParishChurch.

  The rain passed over, and the veranda was crossed with strips of yellowsunlight, the pale washed sunlight of a wet evening, and still the dripfrom the eaves fell intermittently with its melancholy noise, so softlynow, as hardly to be heard, and Hartley got up, and, putting on his hat,walked across the scrunching wet gravel, and out on to the road, makinghis way towards the Club.

  Far away, gleams of light lay soft over the trees of the park, the greensad light that is only seen in damp atmospheres. There was no gladnessin the day, only a sense of deficiency and sorrow, even in its lingeringbeauty; and the lake that reflected the trees and the sky was deadlystill, with a brooding, waiting stillness. Hartley stopped as he wenttowards the further gates of the park, and watched the glassyreflections with troubled eyes. No breeze touched the woods intomovement, and the long, yellow bars of evening light were full of dimstillness. The very lifelessness of it affected Hartley strangely.Except where, here and there, a flash of the low sunset caught thewater, the whole prospect was motionless, and he stood like a manspellbound by the mystery of its silence.

  Hartley had chosen the less frequented road through the Park, and therewas no one in sight when he had stopped to look at the pale sheet ofwater with its mirrored reproduction of tree and sky. It held himstrangely, and he felt a curious tension of his nerves, as thoughsomething was going to happen. The thought came, as such thoughts docome, out of nowhere in particular, and yet Hartley waited with a senseof discomfort.

  When he turned away angry at his own momentary folly, he stooped andpicked up a stone and threw it into the motionless beauty of the water,breaking it into a quick splash, marring the clearness, and confusingthe straight, low band of gold cloud which broke under the wideningcircles. As he stooped, a man had come into sight, walking with a slow,heavy step, his eyes on the ground and his head bent. He came on withdragging feet and a dull, mechanical walk, the walk of a man who istired in body and soul. He did not look at the lake, nor did he even seeHartley, who turned towards him at once with sudden relief.

  When Hartley hailed him cheerfully, Joicey stopped dead and looked up,staring at him as though he were an apparition. He took off his hat andwiped his forehead.

  "Where did you spring from, Hartley?" he asked. "I did not see anyonejust now." There was more irritation than warmth in his greeting of thepolice officer.

  "I was moonstruck by the edge of that confounded lake. It was so stillthat it got on my nerves."

  "Nerves," said Joicey abruptly. "There's too much talk of nervesaltogether in these days."

  Joicey, like all large men with loud voices, was able to give animpression of solidity that is very refreshing and reviving at times,but, otherwise, Joicey was not looking entirely himself. He passed hishandkerchief over his face again and laughed dully.

  "You're going to the Club, I suppose?"

  "I was going there, but now I'll join you and have a walk, if I may.It's early for the Club yet."

  He turned and walked on beside the Banker, who appeared, if anything,less in the humour for conversation than was usual with him. They leftthe lake behind them, now a pallid gleam flecked with wavering light ina circle of deep shadows that reached out from the margin.

  "Any news?" asked Hartley without enthusiasm.

  "Not that I have heard."

  Silence fell again, and they walked out on to the road. Pools ofafternoon rain still lay here and there in the depressions, but Joiceytook no heed of them, and splashed on, staining his white trousers withliquid mud.

  "By the way," he said, clearing his throat as though his words stuckthere, "have you heard anything more in connection with thedisappearance of that boy you were talking of the other evening?"

  Hartley did not reply for a moment, and just as he was about to speak,Mrs. Wilder's car passed, and Mrs. Wilder leaned forward to smile at theHead of the Police; a small buggy followed with some more friends ofHartley's, and then another car, and the road was clear again.

  "I believe I am on the right track, but I don't like it, Joicey. I'mdamned if I do."

  "Why not?"

  "It comes too close to home,"--Hartley spoke with a jerk. "A hatefuljob--I thought I'd tell you--" He spoke in broken sentences, and hiswords affected the Banker very perceptibly.

  "Can't you drop it?"

  Joicey came to a standstill, and his voice was lowered almost to awhisper.

  "I wish to Heaven I could, but it's a question of duty,"--he couldhardly see Joicey's face in the gathering gloom. "I suppose you guesswhat I'm driving at, Joicey, though how you guess, I don't know."

  "I think I'll say good night here, Hartley,"--the Banker's voice wasunnatural and wavering. "I can't discuss it with you. It's got to beproved," he spoke more heatedly. "What have you got? Only the word of astinking native. I tell you it's monstrous." He stopped and clutchedHartley's arm, and seemed as though he was staggering.

  "What has come over you, Joicey; are you ill?"

  "I'll sit down here for a moment,"--Joicey walked towards a low wall."Sometimes I get these attacks. I'm better after they are over. Better,mu
ch better. Leave me here to go back by myself, Hartley. You need haveno fear, I'm over it now; I'll rest for a little and then go my wayquickly. Believe me, I'd rather be alone."

  Very reluctantly, Hartley quitted him. He felt that Joicey was ill, andmight even be beginning the horrible phase of "breaking up," which comeson with such fatal speed in a tropical climate. He went back after hehad gone a mile along the road, but Joicey was no longer there. It wastoo late to think of going to the Club, for the road that Joicey andHartley had followed led away from the residential quarter of Mangadone,and he disliked the idea of going back to his own bungalow and waitingthrough the dismal hour that lies across the evening between the time tocome in and the time to dress for dinner.

  Had there been a friendly house near, Hartley would have gone in on thechance of finding someone at home, but as there was not, he made thebest of existing circumstances and took his way along the road towardshis own bungalow. He could not deny that his walk with Joicey had onlyserved to depress his spirits, and he was sorry to think that his friendwas so obviously in bad health. The world seemed an uncomfortable place,full of gloomy surprises, and Hartley wished that he had a wife to goback to. Not a superb being like Mrs. Wilder, who was encircled by thehalo of High Romance, but just an ordinary wife, with a friendly smileand a way of talking about everyday things while she darned socks.Somewhere in his domestic heart Hartley considered sock-mending abeautiful and symbolic act, and yet he could not picture Mrs. Wilderoccupied in such a fashion.

  A man with a wife to go back to is never at the same loose end as a manwho has no need ever to be punctual for a solitary meal, and Hartleywalked quickly because he wanted to get clear of his depression, ratherthan for any reason that compelled him to be up to time.

  The gathering darkness drew out the flare over the city, and, here andthere, lamps dotted the road, until, turning up a short cut, he was intothe region of trams once more. The lighted cars, filled with gay Burmeseand soldiers from the British Regiment, and European-clad, dark-skinnedcreatures of mixed races, looked cheerful and encouraged to betterthoughts. Hartley crossed the busy thoroughfare below the Pagoda stepsand went on quickly, for he recognized the outline of Mhtoon Pah on hisway to burn amber candles before his newly-erected shrine. He was in nomood to talk to the curio dealer just then, and he avoided him carefullyand plunged down a tree-bowered road that led to the bridge, and fromthe bridge to the hill-rise where his own gate stood open.

  It pleased him to see that lamps were lighted in the house, and he feltconscious that he was hungry, and would be glad of dinner; he made uphis mind to do himself well and rout the tormenting thoughts thatpursued him, and to-morrow he would see Francis Heath and have the wholething put on paper once and for all. He even whistled as he came alongthe short drive and under the portico, where a night-scented flowersmelt strong and sweet. His boy met him with the information that therewas a Sahib within waiting. A Sahib who had evidently come to stay, fora strange-looking servant in the veranda rose and salaamed, and sat downagain by his master's kit with the patience of a man who looks out uponeternity.

  Hartley hardly glanced at the servant. Visitors, tumbling from anywhere,were not altogether unusual occurrences. Men on the way back from ashoot in the jungles of Upper Burma, men who were old school friends andwere doing a leisurely tour to Japan and America, men of his ownprofession who had leave to dispose of; all or any of these might arrivewith a servant and a portmanteau. Whoever it was, Hartley waspredisposed to give him a welcome. He had come just when he was wanted,and he hurried in, a light of pleasure in his blue eyes.

  Near the lamp, a book of verses open on his knee, sat Hartley'sunexpected guest. He was slim, dark, and vital, but where his arrestingnote of vitality lay would have been hard to explain. No one can tellexactly what it is that marks one man as a courageous man, and anotheras a coward, and yet, without need of any test, these things may beknown and judged beforehand. The man whose eyes followed the lines:

  "They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep"--

  was as distinctive as he well could be, and yet his face was notexpressive. His dark, narrow eyes were dull, and his finely-cut featuressmall and perfect, rather than bold and strong; his long hands were thehands of a woman more than those of a man, and his figure was slight toboyishness.

  When Hartley let his full joy express itself in husky, cheery words ofsurprise, his visitor said very little, but what he did say was spokenin a pleasant, low voice.

  "Coryndon," said Hartley again. "Of all men on earth I wanted to see youmost. You've done what you always do, come in the 'nick.'"

  Coryndon smiled, a languid, half-amused gleam of mirth.

  "I am only passing through, my job is finished."

  "But you'll stay for a bit?"

  "You said just now that I was here in the 'nick'; if the nick isinteresting, I'll see."

  "I'll go and arrange about your rooms," said Hartley, and he appearedtwice his normal size beside his guest, as a St. Bernard might lookstanding by a greyhound. "We will talk afterwards."

  Coryndon watched him go out without change of expression, and, slidingback into his chair, took up his book again.

  "They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep."

  Coryndon leaned back and half closed his eyes; the words seemed potent,as with a spell, and he called up a vision of the forsaken Palace wherewild things lived and where revels were long forgotten--solitude andruin that no one ever crossed to explore or to see--with the eyes of aman who can rebuild a mighty past. Solitude in the halls and marblestairways, ruin of time in the fretted screens, and broken cisternsholding nothing but dry earth. Nothing there now but the lion and thelizard, not even the ghost of a light footfall, or the tinkle of glassbangles on a rounded arm.

  Coryndon had almost forgotten Hartley when he came back, flushed andpleased, and full of a host's anxiety about his guest's welfare.

  "I hope you haven't been bored?"

  "No," said Coryndon, touching the book, "I've been amusing myself in myown way," and he followed Hartley out of the room.