“I know nothing about it,” said Joicey, shortly.  “I wasn’t here and I don’t know what Heath was doing, so there’s no use asking me questions about him.”

The Banker relapsed into his former dull apathy, and leaned back in his chair.

“I’ve had insomnia lately,” he said, after a perceptible pause.  “It plays the deuce with one’s nerves.  I believe I need a change.  This cursed country gets into one’s bones if one stays out too long.  I’ve forgotten what England looks like and I’ve got over the desire to go back there, and so I rot through the rains and the steam and the tepid cold weather, and it isn’t doing me any good at all.”

They walked into the drawing-room, Hartley with his hand on Joicey’s shoulder.  The Banker sat for a little time making a visible effort to talk easily, but long before his usual hour for leaving he pulled out his watch and looked at it.

“It may seem rude to clear off so soon, but I’m tired, Hartley, and shall be much obliged if I may shout for my carriage.”

He looked tired enough to make any excuse of exhaustion or ill-health quite a valid one, and Hartley was concerned for his friend.

“Don’t overdo it, Joicey,” he said.

“Overdo what?”

Joicey got up with the heavy lift of an old, weary man, and yet there was not two years between him and Hartley.

“The insomnia,” said Hartley.

“Good night,” replied Joicey shortly, and closed the carriage-door behind him.

He drove along the dark roads, his arms in the window-straps and his head bent forward.  The head of the Mangadone Banking Firm was suffering, if not from insomnia, from something that was heavier than the heaviest night of sleeplessness, and something that was darker than the dark road, and something that was deep as the brown waters that carried outgoing craft to sea.

VI

TELLS HOW ATKINS EXPLAINS FACTS BY PEOPLE AND NOT PEOPLE BY FACTS, AND HOW HARTLEY, HEAD OF THE POLICE, SMELLS THE SCENT OF APPLE ORCHARDS GROWING IN A FOOL’S PARADISE

Social life went its way in Mangadone much as it had before the 29th of July, but Hartley was not allowed to rest and feel comfortable and easy for very long.  Mhtoon Pah waylaid him in the dark when he was riding home from the Club, and waited for him for hours in his bungalow.  Like his own shadow, Mhtoon Pah followed him and dogged his comings and goings, always with the same imploring tale, but never with any further evidence.  Leh Shin was officially watched, and Leh Shin’s assistant was also under the paternal eye of authority, but all that authority could discover about him was that he led a gay life, gambled and drugged himself, hung about evil houses, and had been seen loitering in the vicinity of the curio shop; but, as Paradise Street was an open thoroughfare, he had as much right to be there as any leprous beggar.