He was fully aware that he was hunting what might well be a cold line, and he thought persistently of Leh Shin, putting the other possible issues upon one side.  Hartley had allowed himself to be dominated by a predisposition to account for everything through Heath, and Coryndon warned himself against falling into the same snare with Leh Shin.  He thought of the Chinaman’s shop, and he knew that it was built on the same plan as his own dwelling.  There was no basement, and hardly any room beyond the open ground-floor apartment and the two upper rooms.  Nowhere, in fact, to conceal anything; and its thin walls could not contain a single cry for help or prayer for mercy.  It was possible to have drugged the boy and smothered him as he lay unconscious, but unless the murderers had chosen this method, Absalom could not have met his end in the Chinaman’s shop.  There remained the house by the river to investigate, and there remained hours and days, and possibly weeks, of close watching, that might reveal some tiny clue, and for that Coryndon was determined to wait and watch until it lay in the hollow of his palm.

Acting the part of a man more or less astray in his wits, he wandered out either late or early, with the vague, aimless step of a dreamer, and stood about, staring vacantly.  Leh Shin’s shop attracted him, and he would squat on the ground either just outside the narrow entrance, or just within, and, with flaccid, dropping mouth, stare at the hanging array of secondhand clothes, making himself a source of endless entertainment for the boy, who found him easy to annoy and distress, and consequently practised upon him with unwearying pleasure.

“Wise one, where are the jewels stolen by thy Master?” he asked, throwing the dregs of his drink over the Burman’s bare feet.

“Jewels, jewels?  Nay, friend, jewels are for the rich; for the Raj and the Prince; I have never seen one to hold in my hand and to consider closely.  As for the Punjabi, he is no master of mine.  I did him a service—­nay, I have forgotten what the service was, as I forget all things, save only the guilt of the evil man, once my friend.”

“Tell me once more thy story.”

The Burman cowered down and whimpered.

“Since I put it into speech for thy ears, my trouble of mind has grown, like moonlight in the mist.  I may not speak it again.  They, yonder, would hear,” he pointed at the clothes, that napped a little in the hot, heavy wind that came in strong with the scents and smells of the Bazaar.

“Oh, oh,” said the boy, with a crackling laugh.  “I will tell them not to speak or stir.  I have power over them, and they shall repeat nothing.  Tell me the story, fool, or I will drive thee from thy corner, and the children shall throw mud upon thee in the streets.”