As Muhafiz Ali made his way back to the bazaar, he congratulated himself upon getting so easily the price he had set upon the work, and regretted that he had not inflated it a little more. However, he was well pleased with the day's business. He paused once on the homeward journey to place a four-anna bit in the bowl of an emaciated, ash-painted fakir who sat before the alms-house, and arrived at his shop in a state of excellent spirits.
He made a light and opened the chest in which he kept his necklaces. The instant he saw the top tray he detected a flaw. Unlike most merchants, he was very careful in the arrangement of his necklaces; in one tray were agates, in another blue sapphires; thus with all his beads.
And a string of creamy-luster Mirzapore jade lay in the tray with the clear, deep-green fei tsui.
A cold suspicion uncoiled in his brain. He stood motionless. This could mean but one thing: some one had entered his shop while he was away. He quickly counted the necklaces. None were missing. Nor did a hasty inventory of the lower tray show that anything had been removed. The other chests were under the protection of European padlocks.
Who had entered his shop, and why? Nothing had been stolen. The door was locked.... But the rear! Ah! The court! Why had he not thought to barricade that also against thieves? But had a thief disturbed the beads? A thief would have taken them. After all, was not it possible that he had placed the necklaces in the wrong tray? Possible, but not probable. No, he was certain a hand other than his own had dropped the jade from Mirzapore in with the fei tsui stones.
Yet, he told himself, he had not been robbed. So why be uneasy? But he could not rid himself of the uncanny suspicion that devil-business was afoot. He would feel more secure had he not lost the Sulaimaneh ring.
Upon an impulse he went to the door and peered into the street. The shop of Venekiah, the Brahmin, was dark. From a nautch-house close by came the muffled throbbing of tom-toms—a restless pulse of the night. A man in a Punjabi head-dress lounged under a rheumy incandescent further along the dim street.
Muhafiz Ali turned back, gravely troubled. He locked the door.
Of a certainty devil-business was afoot.