“If thou fail in aught that I have told thee, or if the boy escape or suffer under thy hand, then is thine end also come,” he said, as he stood for a moment in the aperture that led into a waste place at the back of the house; and then Coryndon ran through the night.

The rain had come on, teeming, relentless rain that fell in pitiless sheets out of a black sky.  The roads ran with liquid mud and the stones cut Coryndon’s bare feet, but he ran on, his lungs aching and his throat dry.  It is not easy to think with the blood hammering in the pulses and the breath coming short through gasping lungs, but Coryndon kept his mind fixed upon one idea with steady determination.  His object was to get into the house unnoticed, and to awake Hartley without betraying himself to the servants.

Hartley’s bungalow was closed for the night, and the Durwan slept rolled in a blanket in a corner of the veranda.  Coryndon held his sobbing breath and crept along the shadows, watching the man closely until the danger zone was passed, and then he ran on around the sharp angle of the house and dived into Hartley’s room.  In the centre stood the bed, draped in the ghostly outlines of white mosquito-curtains, and Coryndon walked lightly over the matted floor and shook the bed gently.  Hartley stirred but did not wake, and Coryndon called his name and continued to call it in a low whisper.  The Head of the Police stirred again and then sat up suddenly and answered Coryndon in the same low undertone.

“Get into your clothes quickly, while I tell you what has happened,” said Coryndon, sitting low in the shadow of the bed, and while Hartley dressed he told him the details shortly and clearly.

The bungalow was still in darkness, and, with a candle in his hand to light him, Hartley went into his office and rang up the Paradise Street Police Station.  When he came back Coryndon was standing looking through a corner of a raised chick.

“The Durwan is awake,” he said, without turning his head.  “Call him round to the front, otherwise he may see me.”

“Come on, come on, man,” said Hartley impatiently, “there is no time to lose.”

Coryndon turned and smiled at him.

“This is where I go out of the case,” he said.  “I shall be back in time for breakfast to-morrow,” and without waiting to argue the point he dived out into the waning darkness of the night, leaving Hartley looking helplessly 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 the Chinaman by the arms and spoken to him in strange, strong words that scorched clear across the chaos in his mind and made him understand a hidden thing.  The fact that this man was not a mad convict, but a member of the great secret society who tracked the guilty, almost stunned the Chinaman, who knew and understood the immense power of secret societies.