"Inshallah," murmured Shiraz, and returned to the house.
By night the streets of Mangadone were a sight that many legitimate trippers had turned out to witness. The trams were crowded and the native shops flared with light, for the night is cool and the day hot and stifling; therefore, by night a large proportion of the inhabitants of Mangadone take their pleasure out of doors. In the Berlin Café the little tables were crowded with those strange anomalies, black men and women in European clothes. There had been a concert in the Presentation Hall, and the audience nearly all reassembled at the Berlin Café for light refreshments when the musical programme was concluded.
Paradise Street was not behindhand in the matter of entertainment: there was a wedding festival in progress, and, at the modest café, a thick concourse of men talking and singing and enjoying life after their own fashion; only the house of Mhtoon Pah, the curio dealer, was dark, and it was before this house, close to the figure of the pointing man, that the weedy-looking Burman who had come out of Hartley's compound stopped for a moment or two. He did not appear to find anything to keep him there; the little man had nothing better to offer him than a closed door, and a closed door is a definite obstacle to anyone who is not a housebreaker, or the owner with a key in his pocket; so, at least, the Burman seemed to think, for he passed on up the street towards the river end.
From there to the colonnade where the Chinese Quarter began was a distance of half a by-street, and Coryndon slid along, apologetically close to the wall. He avoided the policeman in his blue coat and high khaki turban, and his manner was generally inoffensive and harmless as he sneaked into the low entrance of Leh Shin's lesser curio shop. A large coloured lantern hung outside the inner room, and a couple of candles did honour to the infuriated Joss who capered in colour on the wall.
All the hidden vitality of the man seemed to live in every line of his lithe body as he looked in, but it subsided again as he entered, and he stared vacantly around him.
There was no one in the shop but Leh Shin's assistant, who was finishing a meal of cold pork, and whose heavy shoulders worked with his jaws. He ceased both movements when Coryndon entered, and continued again as he spoke, the flap of his tweed hat shaking like elephants' ears. He informed Coryndon, who spoke to him in Yunnanese, that Leh Shin was out, so that if he had anything to sell, he would arrange the details of the bargain, and if he wanted to buy, he could leave the price of the article with the trusted assistant of Leh Shin.
It took Coryndon some time to buy what he needed, which appeared to be nothing more interesting than a couple of old boxes. The Burman needed these to pack a few goods in, as he meditated inhabiting the empty, rat-infested house next door but one to the shop of Leh Shin. Upon hearing that they were to be neighbours, the assistant grew sulky and informed Coryndon that trade was slack if he wished to sell anything, but his eyes grew crafty again when he was informed that his new acquaintance did not act for himself, but for a friend from Madras, who having made much money out of a Sahib, whose bearer he had been for some years, desired to open business in a small way with sweets and grain and such-like trifles, whereby to gain an honest living.
The assistant glanced at the clock, when, after much haggling, the deal was concluded, and the Burman knotted the remainder of his money in a small corner of his loongyi, and stood rubbing his elbows, looking at the Chinaman, who appeared restless.
"Where shall I find Leh Shin?" The Burman put the question suddenly. "In what house am I to seek him, assistant of the widower and the childless?"
The boy leered and jerked his thumb towards the direction of the river.