“It wasn’t up to the usual mark,” said Hartley, half-apologetically as he and Coryndon walked home together.  “I felt so awkward about meeting Heath.”  He paused and looked at Coryndon, longing to put a question to him, but not wishing to break their agreement as to silence.

“Tell me about Rydal,” said Coryndon in the voice of a man who shifts a conversation adroitly.  “I don’t remember your having mentioned the case.”

Hartley had not much to tell.  The man had been in a position of responsibility in the Mangadone Bank, and Joicey had given information against him the very day he absconded.  Rydal was married, and the cruel part of the story lay in the fact that he had deserted his wife on her deathbed, fully aware that she was dying.

“She died the evening he left, or was supposed to have left.  At all events, the evening he disappeared.”

“And the date?”

Coryndon’s eyes were turned on Hartley’s face, and he heard him laugh.

“You’ll hardly believe it, but it happened, like everything else, on the twenty-ninth of July.”

“Can your boy look after me for a few days?” Coryndon asked quietly.  “I was not able to bring my bearer with me, and I may have to be here for a little longer than I had expected.”

“Of course he can.”

They walked into the bungalow together, and it surprised and distressed Hartley to see how white and weary the face of his friend showed under the hanging lamp.

“I ought not to have dragged you out,” he said remorsefully.

“I am very glad you did.”

There was so much sincerity in Coryndon’s tone that Hartley was satisfied, and he saw him into his room before he went off, whistling to his dog and calling out a cheery “Good night.”

XVIII

THE REV.  FRANCIS HEATH UNLOCKS HIS DOOR AND SHOWS WHAT LIES BEHIND

When Coryndon made up his mind to any particular course of action and time pressed, he left nothing to chance.  Under ordinary circumstances, he was perfectly ready to wait and let things happen naturally; and so greatly did he adhere to this belief in chance that he always hesitated to make anything deliberately certain.  Had he felt that he could allow time to bring circumstance into his grasp, he would have preferred to do so, but, as he sat on the side of his bed, his chota haziri untouched on a table at his elbow, he knew that every minute counted, and that he must come out of the shadow and deliberately face and force the position.

If he could always have worked in the dark he would have done so, and no one ever guessed how unwillingly he disclosed himself.  He was a shadow in the great structure of criminal investigation, and he came and went like a shadow.  When it was possible he vanished out of his completed case before his agency was detected, and as he sat thinking, he wondered if Hartley could not be trusted with the task that lay before him that day, but even as the thought came into his mind he decided against it.  Opportunity must be nailed like false coin to the counter, and there could be no question of leaving a meeting to the last moment of chance.  He had to make sure of his man; that was the first step.