At the back of the shop and near the yellow circle of light thrown by the candles, was a boy, naked to the waist, and immensely stout and heavy.  His long plait of hair was twisted round and round on his shaven forehead, and he stood perfectly still, watching the officer out of small pig eyes.  He was chewing something slowly, turning it about and about inside a small, narrow slit of a mouth, and his whole expression was cunning and evil.  Leh Shin followed Hartley’s glance and saw the boy, and the sight of him seemed to recall him to actual life, for he spoke in words that sounded like stones knocking together and ordered him out of the shop.  The boy looked at him oddly for a moment; then turned away, still munching, and lounged out of the room, stopping on the threshold of a back entrance to take one more look at Hartley.

As a rule Hartley was not affected by the peculiarities of the people he dealt with, but Leh Shin’s assistant impressed him unpleasantly.  Everything he did was offensive, and his whole suggestion loathsome.  Hartley was still thinking of him when he looked at Leh Shin, who stood blinking before him, awaiting his words patiently.

“Now, Leh Shin, I want to ask you a few questions.  Do you sell lacquer in this shop?”

The Chinaman indicated that he sold anything that anyone would buy.

“Do you happen to know that Mhtoon Pah was looking for a bowl of gold lacquer, and that he sent his boy Absalom here to get it?”

Leh Shin shook his head.  He was a poor man, and he knew nothing.  Moreover, he knew nothing of July the twenty-ninth, he did not count days.  He had not seen the boy Absalom.

“Let me advise you to be truthful, Leh Shin,” said Hartley.  “You may be called upon to give an account of yourself on the evening and night of July the twenty-ninth.”

Leh Shin looked stolidly at the mildewed clothes and tried to remember, but he failed to be explicit, and the greasy, obese creature, still chewing, was recalled to assist his master’s memory.  He spoke in a high chirping voice, and looked at Hartley with angry eyes as he asserted that his master had been ill upon the evening mentioned and that he had closed the shop early, and that he himself had gone to the nautch house to witness a dance that had lasted until morning.

“You can prove what you say, I suppose,” said Hartley, speaking to Leh Shin, “and satisfy me that the boy Absalom was not here, and did not come here?”

Leh Shin, moved to sudden life, protested that he could prove it, that he could call half Hong Kong Street to prove it.

“I don’t want Hong Kong Street.  I want a creditable witness,” said Hartley, and he turned to go.  “So far as I know, you are an honest dealer, Leh Shin, and I am quite ready to believe, if you can help me, that you were ill that night, but I must have a creditable witness.”