The Pointing Man: A Burmese Mystery

by Marjorie Douie

His original idea, on coming out, had been merely to get into touch with Leh Shin, and make the way clear for his coming to the small, empty house close to the shop of the ineffectual curio dealer, and now he knew, through his fine, sharp instinct, that he was close upon the track of some mystery. It might have nothing to do with the disappearance of the Christian boy, Absalom, or it might be a thread from the hidden loom, but, in any case, Coryndon determined to wait and see what was going to happen. He was well used to long waiting, and the Oriental strain in his blood made it a matter of no effort with him. Someone was hidden in the lonely house, some man who paid heavily for the privacy of the waterside opium den, and Coryndon was determined to discover who that man was.

The night was fair and clear, and the murmur of the tidal river gentle and soothing, and as he sat, well hidden by the clump of grass, he went over the events of the evening and thought of the face of Leh Shin's assistant. Hartley had spoken of the bestial creature in tones of disgust, but Hartley had not seen him to the same peculiar advantage. Line by line, Coryndon committed the face to his indelible memory, looking at it again in the dark, and brooding over it as a lover broods over the face of the woman he loves, but from very different motives. He was assured that no cruelty or wickedness that mortal brain could imagine would be beyond the act of this man, if opportunity offered, and he was attracted by the psychological interest offered to him in the study of such a mind.

The ripples whispered below him, and, far away, he heard the chiming of a distant clock striking a single note, but he did not stir; he sat like a shadow, his eyes on the house, that rose black, silent, and, to all appearances, deserted, against the starry darkness of the sky. He had got his facts clear, so far as they went, and his mind wandered out with the wash of the water, and the mystery of the river flowed over him; the silent causeway leading to the sea, carrying the living on its bosom, and bearing the dead beneath its brown, sucking flow, full of its own life, and eternally restless as the sea tides ebbed and flowed, yet musical and wild and unchanged by the hand of man. Coryndon loved moving waters, and he remembered that somewhere, miles away from Mangadone, he had played along a river bank, little better than the small native children who played there now, and he saw the green jungle-clearing, the red road, and the roof of his father's bungalow, and he fancied he could hear the cry of the paddy-birds, and the voices of the water-men who came and went through the long, eventless days.

Even while he thought, he never moved his eyes from the house. Suddenly a light glimmered for a moment behind a window, and he sat forward quickly, forgetting his dream, and becoming Coryndon the tracker in the twinkling flash of a second. The inmates of the house were stirring at last, and Coryndon lay flat behind his clump of grass and hardly breathed.

He could hear a door open softly, and, though it was too dark to discern anything, he knew that there was a man on the veranda, and that the man slipped down the staircase, where he stood for a moment and peered about. He moved quietly up the path and watched it for a few minutes, and then slid back into the house again. Coryndon could hear whispers and a low, growled response, and then another figure appeared, a Sahib this time, by his white clothes. He used no particular caution, and came heavily down the staircase, that creaked under his weight, and took the track by which Coryndon had come.

Silhouetted against the sky, Coryndon saw the head and neck of a Chinaman, and he turned his eyes from the man on the path to watch this outline intently; it was thin, spare and vulture-like. Evidently Leh Shin was watching his departing guest with some anxiety, for he peered and craned and leaned out until Coryndon cursed him from where he lay, not daring to move until he had gone.

At last the silhouette was withdrawn and the Chinaman went back into the house. He had hardly done so when Coryndon was on his feet, running hard. He ran lightly and gained the road just as the man he followed turned the corner by Wharf Street and plodded on steadily. In the darkness of the night there are no shadows thrown, but this man had a shadow as faithful as the one he knew so well and that was his companion from sunrise to sunset, and close after him the poor, nameless Burman followed step for step through the long path that ended at the house of Joicey the Banker.

Coryndon watched him go in, heard him curse the Durwan, and then he ran once more, because the stars were growing pale and time was precious. He was weary and tired when he crept into the compound outside the sleeping bungalow on the hill-rise, and he stood at the gate and gave a low, clear cry, the cry of a waking bird, and a few minutes afterwards Coryndon followed Joicey's example and cursed the Durwan, kicking him as he lay snoring on his blanket.

"Open the door, you swine," he said in the angry voice of a belated reveller, "and don't wake the house with that noise."

Even when he was in his room and delivered himself over to the ministrations of Shiraz, he did not go to bed. He had something to think over. He knew that he had established the connection between Joicey the Banker and the spare, gaunt Chinaman who kept a shop for miscellaneous wares in the dark colonnade beyond Paradise Street. Joicey had a short memory: he had forgotten whether he had met the Rev. Francis Heath on the night of the 29th of July, and had imagined that he was not there, that he was away from Mangadone; and as Coryndon dropped off to sleep, he felt entirely convinced that, if necessary, he could help Joicey's memory very considerably.