When he left the shop, Leh Shin looked at the fat, sodden boy, and the boy returned his look for a moment, but neither of them spoke, and a few minutes later the door was bolted from within, and they were once more alone in the shadows, with the rags, the broken portmanteaux, the relics of art, and the animal smell, and Hartley was out in the street.  He was pretty secure in the belief that Leh Shin had not seen the boy, and that he knew nothing of the gold lacquer bowl, but he also believed that Mhtoon Pah had been far too crafty to tell the Chinaman that anyone particularly wanted such a treasure of art.  Mhtoon Pah, or his emissary, would have priced everything in the shop down to the most maggot-eaten rag before he would have mentioned the subject of lacquer bowls.

There was no mystery connected with the bowl, but there was something sickening about Leh Shin’s shop, and something utterly horrible about his assistant.  Hartley wished he had not seen him, he wished that he had remained in ignorance of his personality.  He thought of him in the sweating darkness he had left, and as he thought he remembered Mhtoon Pah’s wild, extravagant fancies, and they grew real to his mind.

It was next to impossible to discover what the truth was about Leh Shin’s illness on the night of July the 29th, and it really did not bear very much upon the matter, unless there was no other clue to what had become of the boy.  Hartley returned to other matters and put the case on one side for the moment.  On his way back for luncheon he looked in at Mhtoon Pah’s shop.  He had intended to pass, but the sight of the little wooden man ushering him up the steps made him turn and stop and then go in.  Mhtoon Pah sat on his divan in the scented gloom, very different to the interior of Leh Shin’s shop, and when he saw Hartley he struggled to his feet and demanded news of Absalom.

“There is none yet,” said Hartley, sitting down.  “Now, Mhtoon Pah, are you quite sure that it was Mr. Heath that you saw that evening?”

“I saw him with these eyes.  I saw him pass, and he was going quickly.  I read the walk of men and tell much by it.  The Reverend was in a great hurry.  Twice did he pull out his watch as he came along the street, and he pushed through the crowd like a rogue elephant going through a rice crop.  I have seen the Reverend walking before, and he walked slowly, he spoke with the Babus from the Baptist mission, but this day,” Mhtoon Pah flung his hands to the roof, “shall I forget it?  This day he walked with speed, and when my little Absalom salaamed before him, he hardly stopped, which is not the habit of the Reverend.”

“Did you see him come back?  Mr. Heath, I mean?”

Mhtoon Pah stood and looked curiously at Hartley, and remained in a state of suspended animation for a second.

“How could I see him come back?” he said, in a flat, expressionless voice.  “I went to the Pagoda, Thakin.  I am building a shrine there, and shall thereby acquire much merit.  I did not see the Reverend return.  Besides, he might not have come by the way of Paradise Street.”