The Pointing Man: A Burmese Mystery — Reading Notes

Joicey looked up and nodded.

"I'll come," he said, laconically, and Hartley, finishing his drink, went up the staircase.

The reading-room of the Club was usually empty at that hour, and the great tables littered with papers, free to any studious reader. When Hartley came in, the Rev. Francis Heath had the place entirely to himself, and was sitting with a copy of the _Saturday Review_ in his hands. He did not hear Hartley come in, and he started as his name was spoken, and putting down the _Review_, looked at the Head of the Police with questioning eyes.

"I've come to talk over something with you, Heath," Hartley began, drawing a chair close to the table. "Can you remember anything at all of what you were doing on the evening of July the twenty-ninth?"

The Rev. Francis Heath dropped his paper, and stooped to pick it up; certainly he found the evening hot, for his face ran with trickles of perspiration.

"July the twenty-ninth?"

"Yes, that's the date. I am particularly anxious to know if you remember it."

Mr. Heath wiped his neck with his handkerchief.

"I held service as usual at five o'clock."

Hartley looked at him; there was something undeniably strained in the clergyman's eyes and voice.

"Ah, but what I am after took place later."

The Rev. Francis Heath moistened his lips and stood up.

"My memory is constantly at fault," he said, avoiding Hartley's eyes and looking at the ground. "I would not like to make any specific statement without--without--reference to my note-book."

Hartley stared in astonishment.

"This is only a small matter, Heath. I was trying to get round to my point in the usual way, by giving no actual indication of what I wanted to know. You see, if you tell a man what you want, he sometimes imagines that what he did on another day is what really happened on the actual occasion, and that, as you can imagine, makes our job very difficult. I don't want to bother you, but as your name was mentioned to me in connection with a certain investigation, I wished to test the truth of my man's statement."

Heath stood in the same attitude, his face pale and his eyes steadily lowered.

"It might be well for you to be more clear," he said, after a long pause.

"Did you go down Paradise Street just after sunset?"

"I may have done so. I have several parishioners along the river bank."

"Why the devil is he talking like this and looking like this?" Hartley asked himself, impatiently.

"I'm not a cross-examining counsel," he said, with some sharpness. "As I told you before, Heath, it is only a very small matter."

The Rev. Francis Heath gripped the back of his chair and a slight flush mounted to his face.

"I resent your questions, Mr. Hartley. What I did or did not do on the evening of July the twenty-ninth can in no way affect you. I entirely refuse to be made to answer anything. You have no right to ask me, and I have no intention of replying."

Hartley put his hand out in dismay.

"Really, Heath, your attitude is quite absurd. I have already told one man to-day that he was going mad; are you dreaming, man? I only want you to help me, and you talk as if I had accused you of something. There is nothing criminal in being seen in Paradise Street after sundown."

Mr. Heath stood holding by the back of his chair, looking over Hartley's head, his dark eyes burning and his face set.

"Come, then," said the police officer abruptly, "who did you see? Did you, for instance, see the Christian boy, Absalom, Mhtoon Pah's assistant?"

The Rev. Francis Heath made no answer.

"I will not answer any further questions, but since you ask me, I did see the boy."

"Thank you, Heath; that took some getting at. Now will you tell me if you saw him again later: I am supposing that you went down the wharf and came back, shall I say, in an hour's time. Did you see Absalom again?"

The clergyman stared out of the window, and his pause was of such intensely long duration that when he said the one word, "No," it fell like the splash of a stone dropped into a deep well.

Hartley looked at his sleeve-links for quite a long time.

"Good night, Heath," he said, getting up, but the Rev. Francis Heath made no reply.