563296589345

VI
The morning sunlight slanted up the maidan and struck, yellow as goldleaf, against the white face of
the bungalow. Four black-purple crows swooped down and perched on the veranda rail, waiting their
chance to dart in and steal the bread and butter that Ko S’la had set down beside Flory’s bed. Flory
crawled through the mosquito net, shouted to Ko S’la to bring him some gin, and then went into the
bathroom and sat for a while in a zinc tub of water that was supposed to be cold. Feeling better after
the gin, he shaved himself. As a rule he put off shaving until the evening, for his beard was black and
grew quickly.
While Flory was sitting morosely in his bath, Mr Macgregor, in shorts and singlet on the bamboo
mat laid for the purpose in his bedroom, was struggling with Numbers 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of
Nordenflycht’s Physical Jerks for the Sedentary. Mr Macgregor never, or hardly ever, missed his
morning exercises. Number 8 (flat on the back, raise legs to the perpendicular without bending knees)
was downright painful for a man of forty-three; Number 9 (flat on the back, rise to a sitting posture
and touch toes with tips of fingers) was even worse. No matter, one must keep fit! As Mr Macgregor
lunged painfully in the direction of his toes, a brick-red shade flowed upwards from his neck and
congested his face with a threat of apoplexy. The sweat gleamed on his large, tallowy breasts. Stick it
out, stick it out! At all costs one must keep fit. Mohammed Ali, the bearer, with Mr Macgregor’s clean
clothes across his arm, watched through the half-open door. His narrow, yellow, Arabian face
expressed neither comprehension nor curiosity. He had watched these contortions–a sacrifice, he
dimly imagined, to some mysterious and exacting god–every morning for five years.
At the same time, too, Westfield, who had gone out early, was leaning against the notched and inkstained
table of the police station, while the fat Sub-inspector interrogated a suspect whom two
constables were guarding. The suspect was a man of forty, with a grey, timorous face, dressed only in
a ragged longyi kilted to the knee, beneath which his lank, curved shins were speckled with tickbites.
‘Who is this fellow?’ said Westfield.
‘Thief, sir. We catch him in possession of this ring with two emeralds very-dear. No explanation.
How could he–poor coolie–own a emerald ring? He have stole it.’
He turned ferociously upon the suspect, advanced his face tomcat-fashion till it was almost
touching the other’s, and roared in an enormous voice:
‘You stole the ring!’
‘No.’
‘You are an old offender!’