heavily, a man who looked at his business and not beyond it, and never
troubled Society. He probably knew that Heath lived in Mangadone, that
was if Heath banked with him; otherwise, he might easily not have known
it.

He knew of the Wilders. He knew what Draycott Wilder owned, and he knew
that Mrs. Wilder had a very small allowance of her own, paid quarterly
through a Devonshire bank, but more than this he neither knew nor wished
to know of them, and he never went to their house.

Joicey had not "worn well"; there was no denying that sweating years of
Burmese rains and hot weathers had made him prematurely old. His thick
hair was patched with white, and his face was flabby and yellow. Craven
Joicey was one of those men, who, if he had died suddenly, would have
made people remember that they always thought him unhealthy-looking.
There was nothing, romantic, exciting, or interesting about him; his
mind 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 the
place better than he knew Hartley, which was little, but at any rate
Hartley dined once or twice in the year with him, and he occasionally
dined in return with the Head of the Police.

Hartley was so occupied with his trouble of mind on the subject of
Absalom that he very nearly forgot that he had invited Joicey to dinner
the following Saturday. The police had discovered nothing whatever, and
he had received another visit at his house from the curio dealer. Mhtoon
Pah, in a condition bordering upon frenzy, stated that when he had stood
on his steps in the morning, intending to go to the Pagoda to offer alms
to the priests, he had noticed his wooden effigy and gone down to look
closer at him. The yellow man pointed as was his wont, but over the