While they were having coffee, the coolie came into the room and said something which neither of them could understand. The coolie plucked at his chin and said one word, "pock." Mr. and Mrs. Challinor could not understand the meaning, but assumed that the coolie was making some reference to the fact that he had a pock-marked face. They told him not to worry and he left. This strange episode came to light as a result of investigations after the crime, and it appears that earlier in the evening, whilst prisoner and, the coolie were preparing dinner, the prisoner said to the coolie, "You will never prosper. Why did you tell the mistress that I had leprosy?" The coolie denied having said such things to his mistress, and offered to go to her and repeat his denial. The prisoner declined, but the coolie went alone and apparently that was the purpose of his coming into the study whilst Mr. and Mrs, Challinor were having their coffee—to deny having told the mistress that prisoner was suffering from leprosy.
That was not the last reference that evening, for shortly -after the coolie had left, the prisoner came into the study, and said to Mr. and Mrs, Challinor: "You say coolie is pock-man." That remark was scarcely more intelligible than that of the coolie, and neither Mr. Challinor nor Mrs. Challinor said anything, Indeed, there was nothing for them to say, and the prisoner then left the room, He went to the kitchen anà through there went outside and returned to his quarters. The coolie stayed behind in the kitchen for a short while, because it is his duty to clear it up and lock up the back-door after dinner every evening.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.