“He might not.”

“It is not known,” said Mhtoon Pah, shaking his head dubiously, and then rage seemed to flare up in him once more.  “It is Leh Shin, the Chinaman,” he said, violently.  “Let it be known to you, Thakin, they eat strange meats, they hold strange revels.  I have heard things—­” he lowered his voice.  “I have been told of how they slay.”

“Then keep the information to yourself, unless you can prove it,” said Hartley, firmly.  “I want to hear nothing about it.”  He got up and looked around the shop.  “I suppose you haven’t got the lacquer bowl since?”

“No, Thakin, I have not got it, neither have I seen Leh Shin, an evil man.  The Lady Sahib will have to wait; neither has she been here since, nor asked for the bowl.”

Hartley walked down the steps; he was troubled by the thought, and the more he tried to work out some definite theory that left Mr. Heath outside the ring that he proposed to draw around his subject, the more he appeared on the horizon of his mind, always walking quickly and looking at his watch.

Through lunch he went over the facts and faced the Heath question squarely, considering that if Heath knew that the boy was in trouble, and had connived at his escape, he would be muzzled, but there was nothing to show that Absalom had ever broken the law.  His employer, Mhtoon Pah, was in despair at his disappearance, his record was blameless, and he had been entrusted with the deal in lacquer to be carried out the following morning.

Looking for Absalom was like tracing a shadow that has passed along a street on soundless feet, and Hartley felt an eager determination seize him to catch up with this flying wraith.

Still with the same idea in his mind, he drove along the principal roads in his buggy, directing his way towards the bungalow where the Rector of St. Jude’s lived with Atkins, the Sapper.  The house was draped in climbing and trailing creepers, and the grass grew into the red drive that curved in a half-circle from one rickety gate to another.  He came up quietly on the soft, wet clay, and looked up at the house before he called for the bearer, and as he looked up he saw a face disappear quickly from behind a window.  After a few minutes the boy came running down a flight of steps from the back, and hurried in to get a tray, which he held out for the customary card.

“Take that away,” said Hartley, “and tell the Padre Sahib that I must see him.”

“The Padre Sahib is out, Sahib.”

The boy still held the tray like a collecting-plate.

“Out,” said Hartley, “nonsense.  Go and tell your master that my business is important.”

After a moment the boy returned again, the tray still in his hand.

“Gone out, Sahib,” he said, resolutely, and without waiting for any more Hartley turned the pony’s head and drove out slowly.

Twice in two days Heath had lied, to his certain knowledge, and as he glanced back at the bungalow, a curtain in an upper window moved slightly as though it had been dropped in haste.