XXIII
DEMONSTRATES THE TRUTH OF THE AXIOM THAT "THE UNEXPECTED ALWAYS HAPPENS"
At the time when Mhtoon Pah was standing in the centre of a gazing groupbefore the new shrine, and trying to forget that nothing except the newsof Leh Shin's hanging would give him real satisfaction, the Chinaman,accompanied by the Burman, slipped up the channel of gloom under theColonnade and made his way into Paradise Street.
The Burman walked with an easy unconscious step, but Leh Shin creptclose to the wall and started when he passed a sleeping form in adoorway. Night fears and that trembling anxiety that comes whenfulfilment is close at hand were upon him. He knew that the point inview was to effect an entrance into the curio shop, the threshold ofwhich he had not crossed since his last black hour of misfortune hadstruck and he had gone out a beggar.
Everything in his life lay on the other side of the shop door; all hishappy, prosperous, careless days, all the good years. Every one of themwas stored there just as surely as Mhtoon Pah's ivories and carvedscreens and silks were stored safe against the encroachment of damp andmust. His old self might even be somewhere in the silent house, and ittakes a special quality of courage for a man to return and walk througha doorway into the long past. For the first time for years he rememberedhow he had brought his little son into the shop, and how the child hadlaughed and crowed at the sight of amber and crystal chains.
Even Mhtoon Pah grew dim in his mind, and he dallied with the forgottenmemories as he stood shaking in an archway watching the Burman cross thestreet. Insensibly the Burman's mania had waned in the last few hours,and he had grown silent and preoccupied, a fact that escaped Leh Shin'snotice. His owl eyes blinked with the strain of staring through thewavering light, and his memories strove with him as though in physicalcombat. Mhtoon Pah was no longer in the house, and instead of his shadowanother influence seemed to brood there, something that called to LehShin, but not with the wild cry of hate. Before the days of stillgreater affluence Leh Shin had lived there with his little Burmese wife.
The Burman was on his knees, having some difficulty with the lock. Hecould see him fighting it, and at last he saw the jerk of his hand thattold that the key had turned, and that the way was clear. Leh Shin divedout of the recess and ran, a flitting shadow, across the road. The doorwas open, but the Burman for all his madness was not satisfied. Therewas a way out through the back by which they could emerge, and if thefront door hung loose, careless eyes might easily be attracted to thefact. The pointing man was not there for nothing. Almost everyonelooked up the steps. Even in his fury of impatience, Leh Shin saw thereason for caution, and agreed to open a window, and admit the Burmanafter he had locked the door again.
The moments were full of the tense agony of suspense, and he peeredcautiously out from under the silk blind. A late passer-by went slowlyup the street, and Leh Shin's heart beat a loud obbligato to the soundof his wooden pattens. By craning his neck as the man passed, he couldjust distinguish the Burman crouching behind the wooden man, who blandlyindicated the heavy padlock. The wooden man lied woodenly to the effectthat all was well within the curio shop, and a few minutes later theBurman swung himself over the balustrade and climbed with cat-likeagility on to the window-ledge.
The darkness of the room was heavy with scent, and Leh Shin stumbledover unknown things. Coryndon struck a match and held it in the hollowof one palm as he opened the aperture in the dark lantern he carried,and lighted it. When he had done so he looked up, and taking no noticeof the masses of beautiful things, he went quickly to the silk cupboard,opening it with another key on the ring.
"Leh Shin," he said, speaking in a commanding whisper, "turn thyselfinto an ear, and listen for me while I search."
Leh Shin nodded silently, half-stupidly it seemed, and went on tip-toesto the door that opened into the passage. All the power of the past wasover him, and though he heard the Burman's curt command he hardly seemedto understand what he meant. For a little time he stood at the door,hearing the rustling whisper of yards of silk torn down and glanced overand discarded, and then he wandered almost without knowing it up thestaircase and through the rooms, until the sight of Mhtoon Pah's bed andsome of Mhtoon Pah's clothing recalled his mind to the reason of hisbeing there.
He hurried down, his bare feet making no sound on the stairs, and lookedinto the shop again. The Burman was seated on the floor, a width of silkover his knees; all the displaced rolls had been put back. He had workedswiftly and with the greatest care that no trace of his visit should beknown later.
Leh Shin slid out again. The passage was dark as pitch, but he knewevery turn and twist of its windings, and he knew that it led down tothe cellars below the house. He was awake and alert now as Coryndonhimself, and as he strained his ears he caught a sound. He listenedagain with horrible eagerness, looked back into the shop and saw thestooping head going over every yard of a roll of fine silk faithfully;and then he gripped the knife under his belt and, feeling along the wallwith his free hand, followed along the corridor. Once only he glancedround and then the darkness of the corridor swallowed him from sight.
Coryndon, busy with the silk made by the lake-dwellers spread over hisknees, knew nothing of Leh Shin's disappearance. The fever of chase wasin his blood, and he threw the flimsy yards through his hands. Nothing,nothing, and again nothing, and again--he felt his heart swell withsudden, stifled excitement. Under his hand was a three-cornered rent, adamaged piece where a patch rather larger than his palm had been roughlycut out. His usually steady hand shook as he put the stained rag over itand fitted it into the place.
"Leh Shin," he called, as he rose, but he called softly.
No sound answered his whisper, and he stiffened his body and listened.He had been wrong. There was a sound, but it did not come from insidethe shop: it was the slow footstep of a heavy man pausing to find a key.
Coryndon listened no longer. He closed the door of the silk cupboard,bundled up the yards of silk in his arms and extinguishing the lampdarted behind a screen. It was a heavy carved teak screen, inset withsilk panels embroidered with a long spray of hanging wistaria on a darkyellow ground. As he hid himself, he cursed his own stupidity. In theexcitement of his desire to enter the curio shop, he had forgotten tohamper the lock with pebbles.
After what seemed an age, the door opened slowly and Mhtoon Pah came in.Something, he knew not what, had dragged him away from the Pagoda, anddragged him back to his shop. His eyes looked mad and unnatural in thelight of the lantern he held in his hand, and he shut the door and stoodlike a dog who scents danger, and stared round the room. He walked tothe silk cupboard and looked in through the glass panes, but did notopen it or discover that it was unlocked. He paced round the room,stopping before the screen, his eyes still reflecting his trouble ofmind.
From behind the screen, Coryndon watched every stir he made; he saw thelook on his face and noted Mhtoon Pah's smallest movement. There was noevidence of thieves, and yet suspicion made itself plain in every lineof the curio dealer's body. At last, with a gasping sigh, he sat beforethe small figure of an alabaster Gaudama and stared at it with unwinkingeyes.
"I shed no blood," he said, in a low rattling voice. "I shed no blood.My hands are clean."
Over and over he repeated the words, like an incantation, his voicerising and falling, until Coryndon could have emerged from his hidingand taken him by the throat.
The thought of coming out upon Mhtoon Pah crossed his mind, but hisinstinct held him back. He wondered desperately where Leh Shin had gone,and if he would come in upon the Burman making his strange prayer. StillMhtoon Pah repeated the words and swayed to and fro before the image ofthe Buddha, and the very moments seemed to pause and listen withCoryndon. The shop was close and the air oppressive. Little trickles ofsweat ran down his neck and made channels in the stain on his skin, andstill Coryndon waited in tense suspense.
For nearly ten minutes Mhtoon Pah continued to rock and mutter on thefloor, and then he got up, and, taking his lantern, went out by the
doorinto the passage. Coryndon waited for the sound of a scuffle and afall, but none came, and he was in the dark, surrounded by silence oncemore.
Without waiting to consider, he followed across the room and saw theswinging light go down the passage and disappear suddenly. It seemed toCoryndon that Mhtoon Pah had disappeared, as though he had gone throughthe wall at the end of the passage, and he followed slowly. Silencelocked him in again, the dark, motionless silence of enclosed space.
He did not dare to call out again to Leh Shin, and for all that he couldtell, the Chinaman might have been an arm's-reach away from him in thedarkness, also waiting for some sudden thing to happen. The dark passagewas an ante-chamber to some event: Coryndon's tingling nerves told himthat; and he steadied himself, holding in his imagination in a close,resolute grip.
He had no way of judging the time that passed, but he guessed that itseemed longer to him than it possibly could have been; when fromsomewhere far below him, he heard a cry and the noise of several voices,all raised into indistinct clamour.
"More than one man," he thought, as his heart beat quickly. "_More thantwo_," he added, in wonder as he strained in the effort of listening.
The noise died out, and one low wail, continuous and plaintive, filledthe blank of dark silence. Coryndon felt for his matches, and knelt onthe floor, feeling before him with his hands. The crying had ceased, andhe touched the edge of a step. A long, steep flight began just under hishand.
He leaned back and held the match-box in his hand, knowing that hecould not venture the descent in the dark, and as he took out a match anew sound caught his ear. A man was running in the dark. He heard himstumble over the lower steps as he panted fiercely and he broke into acry as he ran, a strange, mad, sobbing cry, and he still gasped and gaveout his wordless wail as he tore past Coryndon and on along the passageand into the shop.
Coryndon heard the door bang behind him, he heard the sound of someheavy thing being dragged before it. The footsteps and the voice werenot those of Leh Shin, and Coryndon knew that Mhtoon Pah had fled like aman pursued by devils, and had barricaded himself in.
For a moment Coryndon paused, and then lighted a match. Close under hisfeet was the perilous edge of a staircase leading sheer down into awell-like depth of blackness. A thin scream came up to him, and withoutwaiting to consider, he ran down quickly. At the bottom he found MhtoonPah's overturned lantern, and relighting it, he followed theintermittent call of fear that echoed through the damp, cavernous placehe found himself in.
A closed door stood at the end of a narrow passage, and from the furtherside of the door a stifled sound of terror came persistently. Leh Shinsat in a huddled heap against the door, and Coryndon stooped over him,throwing the light from the lantern he carried upon him.
"I looked into his eyes," said the Chinaman, in a weak voice, "and oncemore he overcame me. His knife rent my arm, and I fell as though dead."
Coryndon supported him to his feet. His mind was working quickly.
"Canst thou stand by thyself?" he asked impatiently.
The Chinaman gave a nod of assent, and Coryndon hammered on the door,throwing all his weight against it, until it cracked and fell inwardsunder the nervous force of his slight frame.
What Coryndon expected to see, he did not know. He was following hisnatural instinct when he threw aside the chase and capture of Mhtoon Pahand burst into the cellar-room. It was small and close, and smelt of thefoul, fruity atmosphere of mildew. The ceiling was low, and crouching inone corner was a small boy, clad only in a loin-cloth, who stared atthem and screamed with fear.
"The Chinamen, the Chinamen!" he shrieked. "Mhtoon Pah, the Chinamen."
"Absalom," the name came to Coryndon's lips, as he stood staring at him."My God, it must be Absalom."
He had spoken in English before he had time to think, and he turned tosee if his self-betrayal had struck upon the confused brain of Leh Shin,but Leh Shin knew nothing and saw nothing but the face of the boy hisenemy loved. He had placed the lamp on the floor and was feeling for hisdagger, his eyes fascinated and his lips working soundlessly.
Coryndon caught him by the shoulder and snatched his knife from hishand.
"Fool," he said. "Wouldst thou ruin all at the end? Listen closely andattend to me. Now is the moment to cry for the police. Thine enemy is ina close net; show me swiftly the way by which I may go out of thishouse, and sit thou here and stir not, neither cry out nor speak untilthou hearest the police. By the way I go out will I leave the door open,and some will enter there, and others at the front of the house."
He turned to look at the boy, who pointed at the Chinaman and continuedto shriek for Mhtoon Pah. It was no moment for hesitation, thoughCoryndon's thoughts went to the shop and the front door. By that doorMhtoon Pah might already have escaped, but even allowing for this, therewas time to catch him again. He followed the way pointed out by theshaking hand of Leh Shin.
"If thou fail in aught that I have told thee, or if the boy escape orsuffer under thy hand, then is thine end also come," he said, as hestood for a moment in the aperture that led into a waste place at theback of the house; and then Coryndon ran through the night.
The rain had come on, teeming, relentless rain that fell in pitilesssheets out of a black sky. The roads ran with liquid mud and the stonescut Coryndon's bare feet, but he ran on, his lungs aching and his throatdry. It is not easy to think with the blood hammering in the pulses andthe breath coming short through gasping lungs, but Coryndon kept hismind fixed upon one idea with steady determination. His object was toget into the house unnoticed, and to awake Hartley without betrayinghimself to the servants.
Hartley's bungalow was closed for the night, and the _Durwan_ sleptrolled in a blanket in a corner of the veranda. Coryndon held hissobbing breath and crept along the shadows, watching the man closelyuntil the danger zone was passed, and then he ran on around the sharpangle of the house and dived into Hartley's room. In the centre stoodthe bed, draped in the ghostly outlines of white mosquito-curtains, andCoryndon walked lightly over the matted floor and shook the bed gently.Hartley stirred but did not wake, and Coryndon called his name andcontinued to call it in a low whisper. The Head of the Police stirredagain and then sat up suddenly and answered Coryndon in the same lowundertone.
"Get into your clothes quickly, while I tell you what has happened,"said Coryndon, sitting low in the shadow of the bed, and while Hartleydressed he told him the details shortly and clearly.
The bungalow was still in darkness, and, with a candle in his hand tolight him, Hartley went into his office and rang up the Paradise StreetPolice Station. When he came back Coryndon was standing looking througha corner of a raised chick.
"The _Durwan_ is awake," he said, without turning his head. "Call himround to the front, otherwise he may see me."
"Come on, come on, man," said Hartley impatiently, "there is no time tolose."
Coryndon turned and smiled at him.
"This is where I go out of the case," he said. "I shall be back in timefor breakfast to-morrow," and without waiting to argue the point hedived out into the waning darkness of the night, leaving Hartley lookinghelplessly after him.
XXIV
IN WHICH A WOODEN IMAGE POINTS FOR THE LAST TIME
Before the Burman left Leh Shin in charge of Absalom, he had pinned theChinaman by the arms and spoken to him in strange, strong words thatscorched clear across the chaos in his mind and made him understand ahidden thing. The fact that this man was not a mad convict, but a memberof the great secret society who tracked the guilty, almost stunned theChinaman, who knew and understood the immense power of secret societies.
Mhtoon Pah might be driving wildly along a road leading out ofMangadone, and though one old Chinaman and a mad Burman could not stophim, the long arm of police law would grab and capture his gross body.Leh Shin sat quite still, content to rest and consider this. Telegramsflashed messages under the great bidding of authority, men sprang armedfrom stations in every village, the close grip of fate
was not moreclose than the grasp of the awakened machinery of justice, and in thecentre of its power Mhtoon Pah was helpless as a fly in the web of aspider.
"He travels fast, and fear is sitting on his shoulder, for he travelsto his death," he repeated over and over, swaying backwards andforwards.
He had an opium pellet hidden somewhere in his clothes, and he found itand turned it over his tongue; weariness and sleep conquered the pain,and Leh Shin sat with his head bent forward in heavy stupor. From thiscondition he awoke to lights and noises and the sound of a file workingon iron.
The police had come and Hartley was bending over the boy, talking to himkindly and reassuring him as far as he could. Upstairs, the heavy thudof blows on the outer door of the shop echoed through the house withsteady, persistent sound.
Dawn had come in real earnest, and the street, but lately returned fromthe excitements of the feast at the Pagoda, was thrilled by a new andmuch more satisfying sensation. Three blue-coated, leather-beltedpolicemen were on the top of the steps that led to the door of the curioshop, forcing it in. The heavy bolts held, and though the padlockedchain hung idle, the door resisted all their efforts.
Hartley was down in the cellars, and his way through to the shop wasblocked . . . blocked by the inner door which was also closed frominside, and somewhere within was Mhtoon Pah. He was very silent in hisshop. No amount of hammering called forth any response, and even whenthe door gave way and the bolt fell clattering to the ground, he did notspring out.
People had sometimes wondered at the curious destiny of the wooden man.He had been there so long and had done his duty so faithfully. In rainor shine alike, he had always been in the street, eternally bowing thepassers up the steps. Americans had tried to buy him, and had wished totake him home to point at other free and enlightened citizens, butMhtoon Pah refused all offers of money. The wooden man was faithful tohim, and he in his turn was, in some way, faithful to the wooden man. Hehad been there when Mhtoon Pah was a clerk and had indicated his rise,he had seen him take over possession of the shop, and he had beenwitness to many trivial things, and now he stood, the crowd behind him,and pointed silently again. It seemed right for him to point, but it wasgrotesque that he still smiled and bent forward.
The closed gates of the dawn opened and let in the sun, and the paleyellow light ventured across the threshold where the policemen hungback, and even the crowd in the street were silent. The light fell on athousand small things that reflected its rays; it fell on a heavy carvedbox drawn across the further entrance, on the swinging glass doors ofthe open silk cupboard, on bowls of silver and bowls of brass, and itfell full on the thing that of all others drew the horrified eyes of thewatchers.
Mhtoon Pah, the wealthy curio dealer, the shrine builder, the friend ofthe powerful, hung from a beam across the centre of the low ceiling, andMhtoon Pah was dead, strangled in a fine, silk scarf. Fine, strong silkmade only by certain lake-dwellers in a wild place just across the Shanfrontier.
Perhaps the destiny which Shiraz believed a man may not escape, be he asfleet as a flying stag, had caught up with him, and it was not withoutreason that the image had pointed at something not there years ago, notthere when youth was there, and hope and love, and when Leh Shin hadlived and been happy there, but to come, certainly and surely to come.
* * * * *
Hartley and Coryndon sat long over their breakfast. Coryndon's face wasstrained and tired, and heavy lines of fatigue were marked under hisdark eyes.
"The boy was not in a condition to give any lucid explanation when Ibrought him back," said Hartley, "so I left him until we could both hearhis story together." He called to his Bearer and gave instructions forthe boy to be brought in.
Coryndon nodded silently; his eyes lit up with interest and all hislistlessness vanished as he watched the door.
Following Hartley's Bearer, a small, thin boy came into the room,dressed in a white suit, with a tight white pugaree folded round hishead. He shrank nervously at every sound, and when he salaamed toHartley and Coryndon his face worked as though he was going to burstinto tears.
"You have nothing to be afraid of," said Hartley kindly. "Just tell thewhole truth, and explain how it was that you came to be shut up in thecurio shop."
The boy's eyes grew less terrified, and he began to speak in a low,mumbling voice. He began in the middle of the account, and Hartleygently but firmly pushed him back to the beginning.
"Start with the story of the lacquer bowl," he said, talking very slowlyand clearly. "We want to hear what happened about that first."
The mention of the subject of lacquer threw Absalom once more into astate of panic, but as his story progressed he became more sure ofhimself, and looked up, forgetting his fear in the excitement of havinga really remarkable story to tell, that was listened to by Sahibs withintent interest.
In tearful, stumbling words he admitted that he and Leh Shin's assistanthad been friends, and that those evil communications that corrupt notonly good manners but good morals had worked with disastrous resultsupon him. With his brown knuckles to his protruding eyes, he admitted,further, that he had stolen the gold lacquer bowl from the drugged anddrunken seaman, and that Leh Shin's assistant had plundered him of morethan half his rightful share of the profit. What remained over, heprotested, he intended to give to the "Missen," testifying to the factthat his conscience was causing him uneasiness and that his naturalsuperstition made him adopt means, not unknown to other financiers, ofsquaring things by a donation to a charitable object.
He went on to explain that Mhtoon Pah had required him to come back lateby an unfrequented alley, from where his master himself had admitted himinto the basement of the shop. There was nothing altogether unusualabout this, it appeared, as Mhtoon Pah was very strange in his ways attimes. He cooked his own food for fear of poison, and was constantlysuspecting some indefinite enemy of designs upon his life. What wasunusual was the fact that he had been taken at once into the small cell,and that, once there, Mhtoon Pah had behaved like a madman.
Absalom could recall no coherent account of what the curio dealer hadtold him. He had spoken to him of murder, and told him that the Chinamenin the Quarter, headed by Leh Shin, were looking for him to kill him,and that, for his safety, he must remain hidden away. Mhtoon Pah toldhim that he would protect him, and that he would produce evidence tohave Leh Shin hanged, and that once he was dead he would then emergeagain, but not until then. He told him how Chinamen killed theirvictims, and his fears and terrors communicated themselves to the boy,who delivered himself up to bondage without resistance.
For weeks Absalom dragged out a miserable existence, loose when MhtoonPah was in the shop, but chained to the wall whenever he went out, andonly for an hour after midnight was the boy ever allowed to emerge intothe dark, waste garden at the back of the house. The rest of the timewas spent in the cell, and Absalom broke into incoherent wailing as hecalled Hartley and Coryndon to witness that it had been a hard life.
As the end of his story approached, Absalom grew more dramatic andquoted the parting words of Mhtoon Pah before he went out to attend the_Pwe_ at the Pagoda.
"I leave thee in fear," said he, "for thou art the apple of my eye, OAbsalom, and when I am gone some calamity may befall. From whence itcomes I know not, but as men look at the heaped clouds behind the hillsand say, 'Lo, it will soon fall in rain,' so does my heart look out andobserve darkness, and I am ill-satisfied to quit this house."
His words rang in the mind of the boy, shut into the stifling darknessbelow the ground, and he remembered that he cried out for help, not oncebut over and over again, and that his cries were eventually answered bythe voice of Leh Shin, who had called him a child of vipers andthreatened to enter and break him against the wall as he would aplantain. After that Absalom had refrained from crying out, and hadwaited silently expecting the door to open and admit Leh Shin and hislast moment simultaneously. Upon the silence came the sounds ofscuffling and hoarse cries, and it seeme
d to Absalom that Leh Shin hadcalled out that he had already cut the heart from his ribs, and wasabout to force it down Mhtoon Pah's throat, and then nothing was veryclear until voices and lights roused him from stupor to fresh terror andalarm.
He knew that the door had been unlocked and that a light travelled in,held by a strange Burman, and that his terror of Leh Shin had made himsee things strangely, as though from a long way off; until, at the last,the police had come and knocked the chain off his leg, and someone hadtold him that his master was dead and had been found hanging in theshop.
Absalom's face quivered and he began to whimper.
"And now my master is dead, and never in Mangadone shall I find suchanother who will care for me and give me the pleasant life in ParadiseStreet."
Hartley handed the boy some money.
"Take him away," he said to the Bearer. "You have told your story verywell, Absalom."
He looked across at Coryndon when the room was empty, but Coryndon wasfiddling with some crumbs at the edge of the table.
"Madness is the real explanation, I suppose," he said tentatively."Madness and obsession."
"Obsession," echoed Coryndon. "That word explains almost everyinexplicable act in life." He took up a knife and held it level on hispalm. "There you have the normal condition, but once one end swings upyou get Genius and all the Arts, or madness and crime and the obsessionof one idea: one definite, over-mastering idea that drives every forceharnessed to its car."
He got up and stretched his arms, and walked out through the verandainto his room, where Shiraz was folding his clothes and laying them inan open portmanteau. The old servant stood up and made a low salaam tohis master.
"When the sun is down the wise traveller hurries to the Serai," Coryndonsaid to him. "I leave to-night for Madras, Shiraz, and you with me."
"The end of all things is just, Huzoor," replied the old man, a strangelight of reflection in his dim pebble-like eyes. "Is it not written thatnone may rise so high, or plunge so deep, that he does not follow thehidden path to the hidden end? For like a wind that goes and returnsnever, or the shadow of a cloud passing over the desert, is the destinyof a man."
GLOSSARY
_Almirah_ A press_Babu_ A clerk_Butti_ Lamp_Charpoy_ Bed_Chota haziri_ (Little breakfast) Early morning tea_Dhobie_ Washerman_Durwan_ Watchman_Ghee_ Butter_Gharry_ Cab_Gaudama_ Buddha_Htee_ Topmost pinnacle_Hypongyi_ Priests_Inshallah, Huzoor_ God give you fortune, Prince_Joss_ A god_Khitmutghar_ Footman_Loongyi_ Petticoat_Napi_ Rotten fish_Nats_ Tree spirits_Pani walla_ Water carrier_Pwe_ Feast_Serai_ Rest house_Sirkar_ Government_Syce_ Groom_Tamasha_ A show_Thakin_ Master_Topi_ Hat
The Pointing Man Page 23
