V
CRAVEN JOICEY, THE BANKER, FINDS THAT HIS MEMORY IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED
Just as Draycott Wilder stood high in the eyes of the Powers that governthe Civil Service of India, so, too, in his own way, was Craven Joicey,the Banker, a man with a solid reputation. If you build a reputationsolidly for the first half of a lifetime, it will last the latter halfwithout much attention or care, and, contrariwise, a bad beginning isfrequently stronger than any reformation, and stronger than integritythat comes too late.
Joicey had begun well, and had, as the saying goes, "made his way." Hewas a large, heavy man, representative in figure and slow and careful ofspeech. He kept the secrets of his bank, and he kept his own secrets, ifhe had any, and was a walking tomb for confidences not known as"tender." No one would have attempted to tell him their affairs of theheart, but almost anyone with money to invest would go direct to CravenJoicey. He had no wife, no child, and, as far as anyone knew, no kith orkin, and he had no intimate friends. He had one of those strange, shutfaces; a mouth that told nothing, eyes that were nearly asexpressionless as the eyes of Mhtoon Pah, and he had no restlessmovements. A plethoric man, Joicey, a man who got up and sat downheavily, a man who looked at his business and not beyond it, and nevertroubled Society. He probably knew that Heath lived in Mangadone, thatwas if Heath banked with him; otherwise, he might easily not have knownit.
He knew of the Wilders. He knew what Draycott Wilder owned, and he knewthat Mrs. Wilder had a very small allowance of her own, paid quarterlythrough a Devonshire bank, but more than this he neither knew nor wishedto know of them, and he never went to their house.
Joicey had not "worn well"; there was no denying that sweating years ofBurmese rains and hot weathers had made him prematurely old. His thickhair was patched with white, and his face was flabby and yellow. CravenJoicey was one of those men, who, if he had died suddenly, would havemade people remember that they always thought him unhealthy-looking.There was nothing, romantic, exciting, or interesting about him; hismind was a huge pass-book, and his brain a network of facts and figures.He played no games, went only seldom to the Club, and knew no one in theplace better than he knew Hartley, which was little, but at any rateHartley dined once or twice in the year with him, and he occasionallydined in return with the Head of the Police.
Hartley was so occupied with his trouble of mind on the subject ofAbsalom that he very nearly forgot that he had invited Joicey to dinnerthe following Saturday. The police had discovered nothing whatever, andhe had received another visit at his house from the curio dealer. MhtoonPah, in a condition bordering upon frenzy, stated that when he had stoodon his steps in the morning, intending to go to the Pagoda to offer almsto the priests, he had noticed his wooden effigy and gone down to lookcloser at him. The yellow man pointed as was his wont, but over thepointing hand lay a rag soaked in blood.
Mhtoon Pah, immense and splendid in his silk, had given forth wildnoises as he produced the rag, noises that reminded Hartley irresistiblyof the trumpeting of elephants, but they were terrible to hear.
"It is enough," he said, his face quivering. "This is the work of theChinamen. They slit his veins, _Thakin_, they are doing it slowly. The_Thakin_ can understand that Absalom still lives, his blood is fresh andred, it is not dead blood that runs like treacle, it is living bloodthat spouts out hot, and that steams and smokes. _Thakin_, _Thakin_, Icry for vengeance."
"I'm doing all I can, Mhtoon Pah," said Hartley, desperately. "I can'tgo and arrest Leh Shin on suspicion, because there isn't a vestige ofsuspicion attached to the man."
"Not after this?" Mhtoon Pah pointed to the rag that lay loathsomely onthe table.
"That may be goat's blood, or dog's blood; we can't say it isAbsalom's," objected Hartley. "Leave the horrid thing there, Mhtoon Pah,and I will have it analysed later on."
Mhtoon Pah gasped and beat his breast.
"He was a good boy, he attended the Mission with regularity, and theyare doing terrible things. They wind wires around the finger-nails andthe toe-nails until they turn black and drop off. You do not know theseChinamen, _Thakin_, as I know them. Have you seen the assistant of LehShin?"
Hartley wished that he had not; he frequently wished that he had neverseen that man.
Mhtoon Pah bent near the Head of the Police and spoke in low, sibilanttones:
"He is a butcher's mate, _Thakin_. He is a slayer of flesh. He kills inthe shambles. Oh, it is true. I saw him slit the mouth of a dog with hisknife for his own mirth--"
"Swine!" said Hartley.
"Why he left there and went to live with Leh Shin is unknown. He hassecrets. He knows the best mixtures of opium, he knows--"
"I don't want to hear what he knows."
"He knows where Absalom is."
"You only think that," said Hartley, roughly. "It is a dangerous thingto make these assertions. It is only your idea, Mhtoon Pah."
The Burman groaned aloud and held the rag between his hands.
"Put that down," said Hartley. Mhtoon Pah's very agony of desire to findthe boy was almost disgusting, and he turned away from the sight. "Thereis no use your staying here, and no use your coming, unless there ismore of this devil's work," he pointed to the blood-stained cloth."Leave the thing here, and I will see what the doctors have to sayabout it."
"_Thakin_, _Thakin_," said Mhtoon Pah. "The time grows late. My night'srest is taken from me, and the Chinaman, Leh Shin, walks the roads. Isaw him from my place at sunset. I saw him go by like a cat that prowlswhen night falls and it grows dark. He passed by my wooden image of adancing man, and he touched him as he passed--" he gave a despairinggesture with his heavy hands. "Oh, Absalom, Absalom, my grief is heavy!"
"He will be either found or accounted for," said Hartley, with adecision and firmness he was far from feeling, and Mhtoon Pah, with benthead, went away out of the room.
The rain that had held off all day began to come down in pitilesstorrents, blown in by the wind, and fighting against bolts and bars. Itruffled the muddy waters of the river, ran along the kennels of theChinese quarter, drove the inhabitants of Paradise Street indoors andsoused down over the Cantonment gardens, and battered on the travellingcarriage of Craven Joicey, that came along the road, a waterproof overthe pony's back and another covering the _syce_, and Joicey sat insidethe small green box, holding the window-strings under his heavy arms.
Joicey was not a cheerful companion, and in his present mood Fitzgibbon,the Barrister, would have suited Hartley better; but he had askedJoicey, and Joicey was on his way, thinking about Bank business in allprobability, thinking of money lent out at interest, thinking of carefulledgers and neat rows of figures, and certainly not in the least likelyto be thinking of the Chinese quarter, or of a person of so smallaccount, financially, as Absalom, the Christian native. The river or theships or the back lanes of Mangadone might swallow a thousand Absalomsand make no difference to the Bank, and therefore none to Craven Joicey.
Absalom, that shadow of the night, had gone to heaven or hell, and leftno bills behind, and it is by bills that some men's memories arerecorded. He was only another grain of red dust blown about by the windof Fate, and though the Rector of St. Jude's might consider that, havingbeen marked by the sign of the Cross, he was in some way different fromthe rest, neither Craven Joicey nor Clarice Wilder could be expected totake very much heed of the fact.
All stories of disappearance, from time immemorial, have held interest,and everyone has known of some case which has never been explained oraccounted for. Someone who got into a cab and never appeared again, andleft the impression that he had driven over the edge of the world intospace, for the cab, the cab driver, the horse, the vehicle and thepassenger inside were lost from that moment; someone who went for abicycle ride in England, and was found later selling old clothes inChicago; someone who went away by train, someone who went away by boat;the world is full of instances, and they are always tinged with thegreatest mystery of all mysteries, because they foreshadow the ultimatemystery that
awaits the soul of man. For this universal reason, itmight be concluded that Joicey might listen with attention to the storyof Absalom, though his lowly station and his total lack of the mostnecessary form of balance, very naturally made him merely a black cypherof no special account in the eyes of a man of figures.
Certainly Craven Joicey had not worn well. Hartley noticed it as hestood taking off his scarf in the hall, and he noticed it again as theBanker sat sipping a sherry and bitters under the strong light of theelectric lamp. He looked fagged and tired, and though he cheered up alittle as dinner went through, he relapsed into a heavy, silent moodagain, as if he was dragged at by thoughts that had power over him.
"There is nothing the matter with you, is there, Joicey?" asked hishost. "You don't seem to be up to the mark."
"What mark?" said Joicey, with a laugh. "Up to your mark, Hartley, or myown mark, or someone else's mark? The average mark in Mangadone is lowwater. There have been a lot of defaulters this year, and even admittingthat the place is rich, there is a good deal more insolvency about thanI like or than the directors care for. It keeps me grinding andgrinding, and wears the nerves."
"By George," said Hartley, "I should have said that my own job was aboutthe most nerve-tattering of any. I had an interview with Mhtoon Pah thisafternoon that shook me up a bit."
"Ah, I heard that his boy has disappeared."
The door between the dining-and the drawing-room was thrown open, anddinner announced as Joicey spoke, and the conversation took anotherturn. Many things were bothering Joicey--the financial year generally, abig commercial failure, the outlook for the rice crop--and as the mealwore on he grew more dreary, and a pessimism that is part of some men'sminds tinged everything he touched.
"Did Rydal's disappearance affect you at all, personally?" Hartleyasked, with some show of interest.
"Not personally, but it cost the Bank close upon a quarter of a lakh."Joicey drummed his square-topped fingers on the table. "I can't imaginehow he managed to get away."
Hartley frowned.
"I had all the landing-stages carefully watched, and the plague policewarned. He must have gone before the warrant was out, that is, if he hasever left the country at all."
Joicey shrugged his heavy shoulders.
"In any case, the man's not much use to us, and the money has gone. I'mnot altogether sorry he got away." His eyes grew full of broodingshadows and he sat silent, still tapping the cloth with his fingers.
"It's an odd coincidence," said Hartley, and his face grew keen again."Mhtoon Pah's boy, Absalom, disappeared that same night. I wish youcould tell me, Joicey, if you saw Heath that evening when you went downParadise Street. It was the same evening that the Bank laid theirinformation against Rydal, the twenty-ninth."
Joicey had just poured himself out a glass of port, and was raising itto his lips as Hartley spoke, and the hand that held the glass jerkedslightly, splashing a little of the wine on to the front of his whiteshirt. Joicey did not set the glass back on to the table, he held itbetween him and the light, and eyed it, or, rather, it should be saidthat he watched his own hand, and when he saw that it was quite steadyhe set down the wine untasted.
"Paradise Street? I never go down there. I wasn't in Mangadone thatnight," his face was dead white with a sick, leprous whiteness. "IfHeath said he saw me, Heath was wrong."
"Heath didn't say so," said Hartley. "It was the policeman on duty atthe corner who said that he had seen you."
"I tell you I wasn't in the place," said Joicey again.
Hartley coughed awkwardly.
"Well, if you weren't there, you weren't there," he said, pacifically.
"And Heath, what did Heath say?"
"I told you he said nothing, except that he had seen Absalom. I can'tunderstand this business, Joicey; directly I ask the smallest questionabout that infernal night of July the twenty-ninth I am always met injust the same way."
"I know nothing about it," said Joicey, shortly. "I wasn't here and Idon't know what Heath was doing, so there's no use asking me questionsabout him."
The Banker relapsed into his former dull apathy, and leaned back in hischair.
"I've had insomnia lately," he said, after a perceptible pause. "Itplays the deuce with one's nerves. I believe I need a change. Thiscursed country gets into one's bones if one stays out too long. I'veforgotten what England looks like and I've got over the desire to goback there, and so I rot through the rains and the steam and the tepidcold weather, and it isn't doing me any good at all."
They walked into the drawing-room, Hartley with his hand on Joicey'sshoulder. The Banker sat for a little time making a visible effort totalk easily, but long before his usual hour for leaving he pulled outhis watch and looked at it.
"It may seem rude to clear off so soon, but I'm tired, Hartley, andshall be much obliged if I may shout for my carriage."
He looked tired enough to make any excuse of exhaustion or ill-healthquite a valid one, and Hartley was concerned for his friend.
"Don't overdo it, Joicey," he said.
"Overdo what?"
Joicey got up with the heavy lift of an old, weary man, and yet therewas not two years between him and Hartley.
"The insomnia," said Hartley.
"Good night," replied Joicey shortly, and closed the carriage-doorbehind him.
He drove along the dark roads, his arms in the window-straps and hishead bent forward. The head of the Mangadone Banking Firm was suffering,if not from insomnia, from something that was heavier than the heaviestnight of sleeplessness, and something that was darker than the darkroad, and something that was deep as the brown waters that carriedoutgoing craft to sea.