The Island Where Time Stands Still (41 page)

At first they had raced on past the place where he had taken a sharp turn. But soon they must have reached the wall and, seeing no figure against the skyline climbing over it, returned on their tracks. At a slower pace they came pattering back, arguing loudly over whereabouts in the garden they could have lost their quarry. They were met
by a group of inn guests who had come down from the balcony and followed them through the trees. To Gregory's consternation he could see that some of them were flashing torches. Calling advice and directions to one another, the little crowd scattered and began to hunt among the trees, apparently believing him to be lurking behind one of them but, to his relief, it did not occur to any of those who came near him to flash their torches upward.

For half an hour the search went on; then Gregory overheard a dispute that took place not far from him. One of the servants who had started the chase was insisting to some other men that the murderer had had ample time to climb over the wall before they reached it. His opinion was finally accepted and, apparently, the belief that Gregory must have got away was now becoming general; for the sounds of searching decreased, and soon afterwards there was once more silence in the garden.

From the position of the tree and the way in which the little settee was wedged between two of its branches, Gregory would have been prepared to bet that chance had brought him to the very one on which he had cuddled A-lu-te two and a half weeks before; but he felt now that sitting on it was as near to her as he was ever likely to get again. The thought depressed him greatly, but to have made any further attempt to see her that night would have been absolute madness, and he knew that if he meant to make really certain of still being alive next time the sun set, he must be out of Tung-kwan soon after it rose.

Presumably she and Kâo would still make for the old mouth of the Hwang-ho; but there could be no question of his rejoining them further along their route, owing to the fact that he could not possibly prove to them that he had not ruined their mission by murdering the object of it. Because A-lu-te had, on the spur of the moment, saved him from capture, it did not at all follow that, with a calmer mind, she would be willing to condone what she believed to be his crime; while it seemed quite certain that Kâo
would prove hostile to the point of endeavouring to bring about his death.

There was, of course, the matter of his being A-lu-te's bondsman, and her having made herself responsible to the Council for his returning to the island with her; but it had been agreed that no blame should attach to her should unforeseen circumstances, arising in the course of the mission, cause their separation, and so render it impossible for her to carry out her pact.

This, therefore, was the parting of their ways. One question only remained. Which was
his
way?

Much the shortest way home—as the crow flies—was through Mongolia, Soviet Russia and one of the Iron Curtain countries into Western Europe. But—quite apart from being no crow—Gregory had a very healthy respect for the M.V.D. He had pitted his wits against the Soviet secret police before, and was prepared to do so again, if it was in the interests of his country, but not just to save himself a few weeks' extra travel.

The other alternative routes to safety lay north-east, through the Korean battle-front; south, to the troubled zones above the Malay peninsular; or south-east, to Hong Kong. All entailed a difficult, tedious and dangerous journey; but of the three Hong Kong seemed much the best bet, and from there he would have no trouble at all in securing transport back to ‘England, Home and Beauty'.

As the old phrase entered his mind, he sighed. England was forever England, but his Home was empty now, and the Beauty that had been the mainspring of his existence he would never see again.

For the first time it occurred to him that the unfortunate Shih-niang's death might also be a tragedy for himself. A-lu-te was a lovely person and, while he had now had ample evidence that she was capable of passion, there was no doubt that her mind was mainly dominated by her intellect; so he did not think she would have asked of him more than he could give. Life could have been very pleasant married to such an exceptional woman, who combined in
herself most of the best qualities of the East and West, in that enchanted Island where Time Stands Still. Whereas now, the future loomed tasteless, unsettled and desperately empty.

Feeling that he must allow at least an hour to elapse for things to settle down again before he left his hiding place, he began once more to speculate on what might really lie behind the night's events.

Although his theory that the Communists had killed Shih-niang did not altogether fit the facts as they appeared to him, he was still inclined to favour it. The thought turned his mind to Foo. It was now over six weeks since, on the night the snake had been put in his bunk, he had seen that mysterious young man; so, unless the face he had glimpsed in the courtyard of the inn really had been Foo's, there was no reason to suppose that he had followed them all the way from Antung-Ku. But what about the Communist who had been with the caravan, and later had appeared in the great courtyard of the House of Lin?

Thinking of them both it occurred to Gregory that there was a certain resemblance between them, and he wondered that it had not struck him before. It was no more than that they were the same height and that there was a similarity in their way of walking. The garments worn by caravan travellers—long cloaks, great hats of shaggy fur pulled down over their ears, and hoods against the sand which covered their heads and faces most of the time—lent themselves perfectly to disguise. And, in addition, the little man with the caravan had worn thick-lensed spectacles.

It was just conceivable that it had been Foo, skilfully camouflaged to conceal the fact that he was still on their trail; but the idea did not really hold water. Reluctantly but definitely Gregory had decided that it must have been Foo who had put the snake in his bunk. If so, it was he too who had poisoned the cocktail, thrown Wu-ming overboard and pushed Kâo off the top of the ladder in the hope that he would break his neck. Why, then, if in secret he had been doing his utmost to sabotage the mission and had
made two attempts on Gregory's life, should he have saved him from being stoned on the way up to Yen-an? That just did not make sense; so they must be different people.

There were other snags, too, about the theory that the Communists were responsible for Shih-niang's death. Why hadn't they just pulled her in on any trumped-up charge and liquidated her at their leisure? Again, if Lin Wân had known their intentions and, with Kâo's knowledge, deliberately planted her as a scapegoat, why, when she had taken the expected rap, had Kâo, without even bothering to inquire into what had happened, immediately accused Gregory of having killed her?

It seemed much more probable that Lin Wân had been playing a lone hand, and that Kâo knew nothing of the substitution. But wait! That was impossible, because Kâo had met the real Josephine in San Francisco.

Berating himself that such an important point should have escaped him for so long although the past two hours had been anything but ideal for quiet reasoning—Gregory sought to relate the whole picture to this new and definite fact that had so suddenly emerged from his cogitations.

Yet a moment later he was back where he had started. It was not a definite fact at all; no more than an assumption. Kâo had called on Madame Août in San Francisco, but he had never said or indicated in any way that her daughter had been present at their meeting. There was not one atom of proof that he had ever seen her.

That being so, the theory which remained by far the most plausible was that, for some purpose of his own, Lin Wân had palmed Kâo off with a fake, and, having done so, had had a good reason for wanting to get rid of the fake as soon as it could be done without suspicion attaching to himself. But for what reason? Surely not just to get back a few thousand dollars?

Suddenly Gregory got it. Lin Wân had been afraid that Shih-niang would not be able to keep up the pretence of being dumb, even for three weeks. If her mouth could be closed before she gave the game away, he would be in
the clear for good and all. Kâo and A-lu-te would return to the island and report that they had found the Princess Josephine, but on the way back she had been murdered, and that would be the end of the matter.

Another thought: Tû-lai had been in the plot but had not approved it. He had known that Shih-niang had been secretly condemned to death by his father, but, out of compassion, he had warned her of her danger. There could be more to it than that, though. Perhaps he had felt repugnance at the idea of being on the spot when the deed was done. If so he could have arranged before leaving for a courier to overtake him before they reached Tung-Kwan, with an urgent message necessitating his immediate return. It would have had to be something of considerable gravity. What more suitable than that his father had suddenly died? Kâo's party would return to their island and not learn that the message was a lie until many months or, perhaps, years later. If that was the set-up old Lin Wân was still alive.

As Gregory's mind revved over, he was more than ever intrigued by these riddles:

Why had Lin Wân substituted Shih-niang for Josephine?

Had Kâo been aware that she was a fake?

Was Lin Wân still alive?

If so, what were his intentions with regard to the real Princess?

Was she still at the House of Lin?

If not, what had become of her?

Suddenly it occurred to him that to solve this extraordinary conundrum would be much more fun than sitting drinking gin-slings in the club at Hong Kong while waiting for a passage home.

Swiftly he began to tot up his assets and liabilities. On the one hand he was dressed as a Chinaman and now spoke colloquial Chinese with considerable fluency; he had papers which would keep him out of trouble with the Communists; he was armed and had plenty of money. On the other, he was now friendless and wanted for murder.

He had not much doubt, given reasonable luck, of his
ability to get away from Tung-kwan without being caught, and of reaching Hong Kong safely; but to take on the powerful Lin Wân single-handed was a very different matter.

All the same, for a moment he contemplated the kick he would get out of a complete triumph—if he could find the Princess, take her to the Island where everybody would suppose her to be dead, clear himself in the eyes of the delighted A-lu-te, and earn her smiling gratitude.

That, he realised, with a sudden access of sobriety, was far too much to hope for; but he might at least get at the truth for his own satisfaction.

To do so he would have to return to the House of Lin, for it was there that the heart of the secret lay. How could he manage to get there? Wanted for Shih-niang's killing as he was, he could not possibly go openly into the great yard of the inn and bargain with a caravan master to take him up there in a day or two's time. He had got to be out of Tung-kwan an hour or two after dawn. But wait; there was a way.

It would be damnably risky, and the approach to it needed a lot of thinking out. Yet with luck and nerve he might pull it off. Even if he succeeded in reaching Lin Wân's great house again, the moment he entered it he would now be putting his head into the lion's mouth. But he had already taken his decision. Unless his old subtle skill in handling men had failed him, by the light of dawn he would once more be on his way to find the lost Princess.

Shih-niang's murder had occurred shortly after midnight. For an hour Gregory had lain hidden on the roof of the great caravanserai, the second hue and cry after him had continued for over half an hour, and for another hour he had remained up in the tree contemplating the grim uncertainties of the future; so it was now a little past three in the morning.

As the date was October the 11th, dawn was still a good way off; but he wanted to be out of Tung-kwan by first light if possible and, even if everything went well, time must be allowed for various preparations before departure. A try for an early start also meant that if things went wrong, yet he had the luck to escape a third time, he would still have an hour or two of darkness in which to get out of the town on his own. On these considerations, He decided that without further delay he would put his plan into execution.

It was based on the opening of a short story that he had read many years before and always considered to be one of the best in the English language.
Honours Easy
was its title, and it was by that brilliant editor of the
Manchester Guardian
, C. E. Montague. Its hero, when living abroad as a small boy, was given by his foreign nurse a tortoise. She told him that it was a useful pet, because it ate cockroaches. He promptly captured a cockroach and set it before the tortoise, like an early Christian in front of a lion. While the tortoise thought, the cockroach acted. Realising its peril, it leapt for cover under the tortoise's shell and saved itself by taking refuge in its enemy's arm-pit. Gregory now
intended to make a practical use of that admirable example—although he realised that there was always the unpleasant possibly that, in this case, the tortoise might think quickly and he would end up crushed between its jaws.

Lowering the ladder he came down out of the tree. Having checked his pistol again, he put it in his outer right-hand pocket so that without showing it he could cover anyone and, if necessary, shoot them through his coat; then he cautiously went forward.

When he reached the edge of the trees he was relieved to see that no lights showed at the back of the inn. Skirting the last of the tables to his left, he made for the corner below A-lu-te's room, and entered the dark passage in which lay the servants' quarters. No sign of life came from the lean-tos there and, taking his time so as to make a minimum of noise, he walked quietly past them. He was heading for the great courtyard and thought that he might have to go out into the street then enter it by its main gate; but just beyond the last of the lean-tos, he saw to his right the dim outline of a low, doorless arch in the wall of the inn. Turning into it, he found that it was the entrance to a low passage which ran through the building, enabling the servants to go to and fro without actually entering it. A moment later he emerged in the courtyard.