"Your fren' was come alone?" asked De Haan, puzzled.
"Alone and early. There wouldn't likely be any other customer at that time. No witnesses."
"It is all right now—do not be tragic. Nosing of ze kind could be. We will see ze garden again."...
But all they saw was no aid to the case. They entered the garden of Lol Raman to find it disposed as usual, inviting the evening trade. Paper lanterns swung among the trees like phosphorescent fruits and drew a myriad fluttering moths. As if the glow had drawn them too, a few visitors lounged at ease about the tables, sipping and murmuring languidly. Some of the Lombock's passengers were there, notably a smallish man with shiny skin and bulbous eyes, glittering and predatory, who bowed effusively to De Haan and received a cool nod. Gliding here and yon, and jiggling a tray to serve the general need, went a waxen-faced manikin. Glasses shone and sparkled. White garments showed fresh and span. And farther back, amid the shadows under the big palm, could be seen the vague figure of the presiding genius of the place, the huge red ape, huddled in the attitude of meditation.
"All ze same, hey?" said De Haan. "Still we remain a liddle. Perhaps we hear somesing. And you, my dear fallow, drink zis."
He chose a table in the arbor near a magnificent rhododendron and poured a measure of golden yellow liquid from a ready bottle, and the mate had need of the same. Nivin was paying the penalty just then for unprofessional weakness and the mellower streak of his nature, as those of his type have often to pay here below. He remembered that he alone had guided Tunstal. He could not acquit himself for whatever ill had befallen. And he remembered something else—another evil he had done nothing to check that day—the passage of the cinnabar boat with her ruddy devils and suspected errand....
"What is ze matter wit' zat beast?" rumbled De Haan, frowning over his shoulder. "He don' yell good to-night. He acts like sick. And alzo he haf no roll' us yet one single cigarette. Yet here is plenty tobacco too—"
With his foot he pushed within the circle of the chain a little lacquer box and a packet of leaves, but when he turned again the kindly official saw that his attempt to set up a diversion had failed. Nivin looked leaner and more leathery than ever, and his eyes had lighted with an almost fanatic gleam which was only partly due to arrack—that potential drink. "It's no use, Mister Controller," he said. "And I thank you for meaning well. But you can't keep from me that something awful has happened to the boy I sent from the Lombock so free and careless."
De Haan squirmed through all his thick bulk. "Don' speak so wit' a pain, my dear fallow," he urged. "I do not admit it. We haf yet to see."
"I can see. You try to tell me certain crimes are spared you here. I take it you mean such deviltry as grows where foreigners have rotted a native country?"