Coryndon knew the full value of working from point to point, but beside this method he placed his own instinct, and his instinct pointed along a different road, a road that might lead nowhere, and yet it called to him as he sat on the side of his bed, as roads with indefinite endings have called men since the beginning of time.

Against his own trained judgment, he wavered and yielded, and at length took his white topi from a peg on the wall and walked out slowly up the garden.  It was three in the afternoon.  Just the hour when Shiraz was lying on his mat asleep, and when Leh Shin slept, and Mhtoon Pah drowsed against his cushion from Balsorah, each dreaming after his own fashion; and it was an hour when white men were sure to be in their bungalows.  Hartley was lying in a chair in the veranda, and all through Mangadone men rested from toil and relaxed their brains after the morning’s work.

Coryndon went out softly and slowly, and he walked under the hot burning sun that stared down at Mangadone as though trying to stare it steadily into flame.  White, mosque-like houses ached in the heat, chalk-white against the sky, and the flower-laden balconies, massed with bougainvillaea, caught the stare and cracked wherever there was sap enough left in the pillars and dry woodwork to respond to the fierce heat of a break in the rains.

It was a long, hot walk to the bungalow where Joicey lived, over the Banking House itself, and the vast compound was arid and bare from three days of scorching drought.  Coryndon’s feet sounded gritting on the red, hard drive that led to the cool of the porch.  No one called at such an hour; it was unheard of in Mangadone, where the day from two to five was sacred from interruption.

A Chaprassie stopped him on the avenue, and a Bearer on the steps of the house itself.  There were subordinates awake and alive in the Bank, ready to answer questions on any subject, but Coryndon held to his purpose.  He did not want to see any of the lesser satellites; his business was with the Manager, and he said that he must see him, if the Manager was to be seen, or even if he was not, as his business would not keep.

A young man with a smooth, affable manner appeared from within, and said he would give any message that Coryndon had to leave with his principal, but Coryndon shook his head and politely declined to explain himself or his business, beyond the fact that it was private and important.  The young man shook his head doubtfully.

“It doesn’t happen to be a very good hour.  We never disturb Mr. Joicey in the afternoons.”

“May I send in my card?” asked Coryndon.

“Certainly, if you wish to do so.”

Coryndon took a pencil out of his pocket, and, scribbling on the corner of his card, enclosed it in an envelope, and waited in the dark hall, where electric fans flew round like huge bats, the smooth-mannered young man keeping him courteous company.