"glimpses of the moon" in the Cantonments; for Shiraz neglected nothing,
and had a genius for detail.

A hurricane lamp, that threw impartial light upon all sides, stood on a
round table, and lighted the small room, and at one corner Coryndon sat,
clad in his Burmese _loongyi_ and white coat, thinking, his chin on his
folded hands. He had taught himself to think without paper or pens, and
to record his impressions with the same diligent care as though he wrote
them upon paper. He could command his thoughts, and direct them towards
one end and one issue, and he believed that notes were an abomination,
and that, in his Service, memory was the only safe recorder of progress.

He was fully aware that he was hunting what might well be a cold line,
and he thought persistently of Leh Shin, putting the other possible
issues upon one side. Hartley had allowed himself to be dominated by a
predisposition to account for everything through Heath, and Coryndon
warned himself against falling into the same snare with Leh Shin. He
thought of the Chinaman's shop, and he knew that it was built on the
same plan as his own dwelling. There was no basement, and hardly any
room beyond the open ground-floor apartment and the two upper rooms.
Nowhere, in fact, to conceal anything; and its thin walls could not
contain a single cry for help or prayer for mercy. It was possible to
have drugged the boy and smothered him as he lay unconscious, but unless
the murderers had chosen this method, Absalom could not have met his end
in the Chinaman's shop. There remained the house by the river to
investigate, and there remained hours and days, and possibly weeks, of
close watching, that might reveal some tiny clue, and for that Coryndon
was determined to wait and watch until it lay in the hollow of his palm.

Acting the part of a man more or less astray in his wits, he wandered