“By George,” said Hartley, “I should have said that my own job was about the most nerve-tattering of any.  I had an interview with Mhtoon Pah this afternoon that shook me up a bit.”

“Ah, I heard that his boy has disappeared.”

The door between the dining-and the drawing-room was thrown open, and dinner announced as Joicey spoke, and the conversation took another turn.  Many things were bothering Joicey—­the financial year generally, a big commercial failure, the outlook for the rice crop—­and as the meal wore on he grew more dreary, and a pessimism that is part of some men’s minds tinged everything he touched.

“Did Rydal’s disappearance affect you at all, personally?” Hartley asked, with some show of interest.

“Not personally, but it cost the Bank close upon a quarter of a lakh.”  Joicey drummed his square-topped fingers on the table.  “I can’t imagine how he managed to get away.”

Hartley frowned.

“I had all the landing-stages carefully watched, and the plague police warned.  He must have gone before the warrant was out, that is, if he has ever left the country at all.”

Joicey shrugged his heavy shoulders.

“In any case, the man’s not much use to us, and the money has gone.  I’m not altogether sorry he got away.”  His eyes grew full of brooding shadows and he sat silent, still tapping the cloth with his fingers.

“It’s an odd coincidence,” said Hartley, and his face grew keen again.  “Mhtoon Pah’s boy, Absalom, disappeared that same night.  I wish you could tell me, Joicey, if you saw Heath that evening when you went down Paradise Street.  It was the same evening that the Bank laid their information against Rydal, the twenty-ninth.”

Joicey had just poured himself out a glass of port, and was raising it to his lips as Hartley spoke, and the hand that held the glass jerked slightly, splashing a little of the wine on to the front of his white shirt.  Joicey did not set the glass back on to the table, he held it between him and the light, and eyed it, or, rather, it should be said that he watched his own hand, and when he saw that it was quite steady he set down the wine untasted.

“Paradise Street?  I never go down there.  I wasn’t in Mangadone that night,” his face was dead white with a sick, leprous whiteness.  “If Heath said he saw me, Heath was wrong.”

“Heath didn’t say so,” said Hartley.  “It was the policeman on duty at the corner who said that he had seen you.”

“I tell you I wasn’t in the place,” said Joicey again.

Hartley coughed awkwardly.

“Well, if you weren’t there, you weren’t there,” he said, pacifically.

“And Heath, what did Heath say?”

“I told you he said nothing, except that he had seen Absalom.  I can’t understand this business, Joicey; directly I ask the smallest question about that infernal night of July the twenty-ninth I am always met in just the same way.”