h you, is there, Joicey?" asked his
host. "You don't seem to be up to the mark."

"What mark?" said Joicey, with a laugh. "Up to your mark, Hartley, or my
own mark, or someone else's mark? The average mark in Mangadone is low
water. There have been a lot of defaulters this year, and even admitting
that the place is rich, there is a good deal more insolvency about than
I like or than the directors care for. It keeps me grinding and
grinding, and wears the nerves."

"By George," said Hartley, "I should have said that my own job was about
the most nerve-tattering of any. I had an interview with Mhtoon Pah this
afternoon that shook me up a bit."

"Ah, I heard that his boy has disappeared."

The door between the dining-and the drawing-room was thrown open, and
dinner announced as Joicey spoke, and the conversation took another
turn. Many things were bothering Joicey--the financial year generally, a
big commercial failure, the outlook for the rice crop--and as the meal
wore on he grew more dreary, and a pessimism that is part of some men's
minds tinged everything he touched.

"Did Rydal's disappearance affect you at all, personally?" Hartley
asked, with some show of interest.

"Not personally, but it cost the Bank close upon a quarter of a lakh."
Joicey drummed his square-topped fingers on the table. "I can't imagine
how he managed to get away."

Hartley frowned.

"I had all the landing-stages carefully watched, and the plague police
warned. He must have gone before the warrant was out, that is, if he has
ever left the country at all."

Joicey shrugged his heavy shoulders.

"In any case, the man's not much use to us, and the money has gone. I'm
not altogether sorry he got away." His eyes grew full of brooding
shadows and he sat silent, still tapping the cloth with his fingers.

"It's an odd coincidence," said Hartley, and his face grew keen again.
"Mhtoon Pah's boy, Absalom, disappeared that same night. I wish you
could tell me, Joicey, if you saw Heath that evening when you went down
Paradise Street. It was the same evening that the Bank laid their
information against Rydal, the twenty-ninth."

Joicey had just poured himself out a glass of port, and was raising it
to his lips as Hartley spoke, and the hand that held the glass jerked
slightly, splashing a little of the wine on to the front of his white
shirt. Joicey did not set the glass back on to the table, he held it
between him and the light, and eyed it, o