The Island Where Time Stands Still (21 page)

‘Women,' declared the aged Chinaman, ‘are as numerous as the sands of the sea, and of as little value. If she had the right to claim the protection of the Tong you may be sure it was afforded her, but no record would have been kept of the matter.'

‘This was hardly a case of that kind, Miss Août was not an inhabitant of Chinatown. She was of noble Manchu blood and lived with her mother in an apartment off Golden Gate Park. On the morning of May the 18th her mother was run down by a car and killed. That afternoon Miss Août disappeared, and it has proved impossible to trace her movements since. However, we know that a wealthy Chinese merchant wished to marry her and it was thought possible that, learning that she had lost her natural protector, he might have sought your good offices to secure her compliance.'

Gregory felt quite certain that everything he had so far said was already known to the Tong boss; but he counted on his final sentence jerking him out of his passivity, and he uttered it with an air of unchallengeable authority. ‘Anyhow, the one thing we do know for certain is that you took charge of her. You see, the F.B.I. has proof of that.'

For a moment there was complete silence in the warm, dimly-lit room, then Quong-Yü said, ‘I hope there is no suggestion that any of my people kidnapped this young woman?'

‘I fear there may be'—Gregory twisted the screw a little—‘unless you can clear them by recalling what has happened to her. Mr. Kâo Hsüan and his friends have a very special interest in Josephine Août. They have no desire at all to make trouble for your Tong, but they are determined to solve the mystery of her disappearance. If you cannot help them get her back, what alternative will they have but to ask the further help of the F.B.I.?'

‘There have been riddles before now which even the F.B.I. has failed to solve,' remarked Quong-Yü with sudden acidity.

‘True,' replied Gregory quietly. ‘But should they believe that you are withholding information from them, they might cause you considerable inconvenience. I don't think I mentioned that the man who is coming to pick me up in—yes, in about a quarter of an hour's time—is not just a Police captain, but Mr. Edgar C. Grace, whose name is, I think, known to you.'

The loose folds of Quong-Yü's multi-coloured robe rustled as he suddenly sat forward in his big chair and asked, ‘Who are you? What interest have you in all this?'

Gregory shrugged. ‘I'm just an Englishman who has specialised in getting to the bottom of various odd affairs. At the moment I have nothing much to do, so I promised some Chinese friends of mine to help them find Josephine Août; then I took a trip to Washington and some people there ordered Mr. Edgar C. Grace to give me his assistance. I found that he was very well disposed towards you, but all the same he's got to produce the goods or answer for his failure to the boys on top. He is hoping that you will give me all the information that you can, otherwise in about ten minutes' time, instead of going off to enjoy a good dinner with me he may feel compelled to spend his evening looking into what goes on in that lamp shop of yours.'

Having fired his big broadside Gregory sat calmly waiting for results. They were not long in coming. Quong-Yü's wrinkled face remained expressionless, but he said a little wistfully, ‘If only I could remember this Miss Août. Perhaps you could describe her to me?'

It was the final measure for face-saving, and Gregory had deliberately left that door open by refraining from any mention of Josephine's affliction. Without the suggestion of a smile he said, ‘She is now twenty years of age and reported to be very good-looking; but unfortunately, owing to a surgeon bungling an operation on her throat when she was a child, she is completely dumb.'

‘Ah!' Quong-Yü gave a well-simulated sigh of relief. ‘Now I recall this Miss Août and can tell you what happened to her. Does the name Lin Wân convey anything to you?'

‘No; nothing.'

‘It will to Mr. Kâo Hsüan and your other Chinese friends. Lin Wân comes of an old family and possesses great wealth. He is what you would call a Merchant Prince. It seems that he was in close touch with the Aoûts, for on the day of the mother's death he came to me and said that the daughter's now being alone in the world, and a girl of noble lineage, he wished to offer her his protection. I had that offer conveyed to her and she accepted it.'

‘Might that perhaps be interpreted to mean that he has taken her as a wife or concubine?' Gregory asked.

Quong-Yü shook his head. ‘Oh no. I feel sure that Mr. Lin Wân had no thought of marrying her; and, as you are doubtless aware, the lady's lineage was so exalted that it placed her above any thought of concubinage.'

Gregory smiled. ‘In that case Mr. Lin Wân has fulfilled to wards her the true functions of a protector. I am most grateful for the information you have given me. Now it remains only for Mr. Grace and myself to check up on these particulars. We should be able to do that before dinner this evening, if you will be good enough to give me Mr. Lin Wân's address.

For a moment Quong-Yü remained silent, then he began to laugh. He laughed and laughed until the tears ran out of the slits that now concealed his eyes. His beautiful little hand-maiden threw Gregory an angry look and lifting her aged master up in his big chair began gently to pat his back. At last from sheer exhaustion his laughter ceased and opening his eyes he wheezed:

‘Check up if you wish but it will not be this evening. The great House of Lin is near Yen-an, and it is there that he will have taken the dumb Princess. To find her you must cross the Pacific, travel eight hundred miles up the Hwang Ho, and then by camel caravan right across northern China, almost to the wall beyond which lie only the deserts of Mongolia.'

On the afternoon following Gregory's interview with Quong-Yü a council was called of those principally interested in the information he had obtained. It was held in the little stern lounge of the yacht, and while A-lu-te reclined gracefully on her divan, Kâo, Wu-ming and Captain Ah-moi sat round the table with Gregory. In eager silence they listened as he told them what had happened, and of his subsequent thoughts and inquiries.

At first he had been most disinclined to believe Quong-Yü's story that Josephine was now some seven thousand miles from San Francisco in an almost inaccessible part of Communist China, and thought it simply a skilful device for evading a check-up. But later he was forced to conclude that the old man had been telling the truth.

Among the qualities which had earned Quong-Yü his position as Tong boss, foresight was one of the most valuable. When acting in the matter of Miss Août, he had evidently realised that, sooner or later, a time might come when the importance of that young woman's family connections would lead to a police investigation. To protect himself from the possibility of a charge of having made away with her, or sold her for secret export by some illicit trafficker in women, he had had the shrewdness to extract from Lin Wân a receipt for her safe delivery; and this he produced for Gregory's inspection.

Gregory's knowledge of Chinese writing was sufficient only for him to make out the rough sense of the document, and it occurred to him that it might be a forgery; but Quong Yü said that he was quite willing for Mr. Grace to have it examined, and that there were plenty of reputable merchants
in San Francisco who would vouch for Lin Wân's signature; so that seemed to put its authenticity beyond doubt.

The old man had further strengthened the plausibility of his story by stating that Lin Wân was the owner of a fleet of cargo ships regularly calling at San Francisco; that every few years he visited the city in one of them himself; that he had arrived in the port some ten days before Madame Août's death; and that her daughter's disappearance was explained by the fact that she had embarked on Lin Wân's vessel that same night, then sailed in her with him for China three days later.

Over an excellent dinner, Gregory had discussed this new development very fully with Mr. Grace. They agreed that whether Josephine had gone willingly or unwillingly was still very much in doubt, and that the odds were all on Quong-Yü having been paid a considerable sum to kidnap her; but they knew that the chance of ever being able to bring that home to him was now extremely remote, and that, anyway, it had no bearing on what had happened to the girl afterwards.

The F.B.I, chief said that he knew Lin Wân by name as a wealthy Chinese ship owner, and would make inquiries about him; although he did not think it would get them very much further, as Quong would not have been fool enough to invent Lin Wân's visit to San Francisco, or forge his name on a receipt; so the explanation that Josephine had sailed with him to China could almost certainly be accepted as true.

In the morning Gregory had gone ashore, to learn that Mr. Grace had confirmed Lin Wân's presence in the port during mid-May, and that his ship had sailed on the 21st. Its destination had been given as Tsing-tao.
¹
The American had then gone on to say:

The reputation of this Lin Wân stands pretty high; so it looks to me less than ever like an into-bed snatch. It's my guess that there's a political angle to it. Communism hasn't taken the Chinese in at all the same way as it did the Russians. The Reds have bumped off thousands of reactionaries, but in the main they've let be their big industrialists. There's a good reason for that. The Chinese are a cynical lot, and most of them don't give a cuss what sort of government they have, provided they are allowed to live much as they always have done. It follows that the best chance Mao and his boys had of remaining permanently in the saddle was to keep the shops well supplied with the usual run of goods at reasonable prices; and the only way they could do that was to string along with the old merchant princes, like Lin Wân. That has suited Lin Wân and Co. a sight better than being sent to join their ancestors; and I doubt if they have even suffered much financially, as the squeeze the Reds take off them is probably no greater than they had to ante-up to a succession of War Lords in the old days.

‘But there's no future to it; because it can only be a matter of time before the Communists will have infiltrated enough of their own people into China's big business to take it over. The king-pins can't be so dumb as not to realise that, so there's always a possibility that they'll gamble everything in a counter-revolution. If they ever do, their chances of success must largely depend on their ability to produce a rallying cry which will win for them immediate popular support.

‘Now, what's to prevent this Août girl being used in just that way? Her social register stuff would render an appeal in her name ace high with all the conservative elements, and the fact of her being beautiful but dumb would gain her the sympathy of the romantic masses. You may think I'm crazy, but I'd hazard a guess that Lin Wân and his buddies figure to keep a hold on their millions by running this dame for Queen of China.'

Gregory did not think Mr. Grace at all crazy; and that afternoon, after making a full report to the small company
assembled in the stern deck lounge, he produced the F.B.L chief's theory, then waited with much interest for reactions.

Kâo nodded solemnly. ‘What your friend says about China is largely true. During the past half century the morality of the people has sadly deteriorated, but they are still so set in the ways of centuries that it must be many years before they are conditioned to the same unquestioning acceptance of Communism as the Russians. I think him right, too, in his contention that the continuance of the Communist regime is largely dependent on its ability to maintain a fair standard of living for the people; and I know that the majority of the men who for the past twenty years have run China's industry and commerce have suffered no molestation. Mr. Lin Wân is one of them, and I have no doubt that they would all like to see a counter-revolution, but I do not think he is the type of man who would play a leading part in one.'

‘You know him, then,' said Gregory quickly.

‘Oh yes. We first met many years ago, and have since run into one another in various cities. He is the head of a family that has long been greatly respected. In his own province, before the Communists came, his word was law; and even now it must still carry great weight. But he concerns himself only with commerce and has never shown any interest in politics.'

‘Perhaps he was acting for some friends of his who happen to be more politically minded,' Gregory suggested. ‘Knowing that he was coming to San Francisco they might have asked him to collect Josephine, and he could have agreed without knowing that they intended to use her in a conspiracy.'

Ah-moi shook his handsome head. ‘I do not believe there is anything in this idea that the Princess is to be used for the figurehead in a revolution. During the past few weeks, in the Mariners' Club ashore, I have met several ships' officers recently arrived from China, and learned quite a lot from them about present conditions there. They all say that the Communists have used their propaganda most skilfully to
discredit the old regime, so that all young people now believe it to have been an age of tyranny. Therefore, if in time there is a revolution, its object will be to throw the Communists out in favour of a Democratic Republic; but the people would never accept a restoration of the Imperial House.'

‘I entirely agree,' said Wu-ming. ‘But since everything points to Quong-Yü's having told the truth about the Princess's having gone to China with Mr. Lin Wân, why should we not give credence to the rest of his story—that she was offered the protection of this powerful man and decided to accept it?'

‘No!' A-lu-te raised herself on her divan. ‘You forget that she was in love. I am sure she would never have left her young student willingly.'

Wu-ming gave her a bitter smile. ‘Love can become an obsession with all of us at times, but occasionally a sudden change of circumstances is enough to smother it. Having been poor all her life and with no prospect of bettering her lot than by submitting to the old man who was pursuing her, she may have regarded the idea of sharing a two-roomed apartment with her student as bliss. But the third alternative presented to her by Mr. Lin Wân may have seemed even more attractive. It meant that she would go to China—a land of which she had no doubt often dreamed—and after all her years of living meanly in restricted quarters become instead an honoured guest, surrounded with every luxury and attention in a great mansion having many rooms and courts set amid beautiful gardens. This dazzling prospect so suddenly laid before her may have reduced her love for her student to little more than a sentimental regret at having to leave him behind.'