The Pointing Man | Page 8

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.
"Did you see him?"
"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.
Hartley went back to his bungalow with something to think about. He
had always regarded Heath as a difficult and rather violently religious
man. They had never been friends, and he knew that they never could
be friends, but he respected the man even without liking him. Now he
was quite convinced that Heath, after some deliberation with his
conscience, had lied to him, and it made him angry. He had admitted,
with the greatest reluctance, that he had been through Paradise Street,
and seen the boy, and his declaration that he had not seen him again did
not ring with any real conviction. It made the whole question more
interesting, but it made it unpleasant. If things came to light that called
the inquiry into court, the Rev. Francis Heath might live to learn that
the law has a way of obliging men to speak. If Hartley had ever been
sure of anything in his life, he was sure that Heath knew something of
Absalom,