At last the silhouette was withdrawn and the Chinaman went back into the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,