The Island Where Time Stands Still (53 page)

As dawn broke over the Island where Time Stands Still, the four prisoners were roused by their guards, and as soon as they had dressed, Chung served them with ‘first rice'. Gregory had got back without incident and, although he had had less than three hours' sleep, his wits were sufficiently about him for him to make the elderly cook eat a little from each of the bowls before leaving them on the table.

By half-past seven they had finished breakfast, and the senior police officer told them that he had orders to take them to the Palace. The sedan-chair in which Josephine had been carried up the hill was produced for her again and with the others walking beside it they set off.

As soon as they got down to the harbour a small crowd began to gather and accompany them. Then, as they advanced up the avenue of palms, the crowd was swollen by people coming from all directions until, when they neared the Palace, the best part of a thousand men and women were marching along before and behind Josephine's sedan-chair.

The crowd neither hissed nor cheered, and it was clear that the emotion which had caused them to abandon their daily tasks was an intense curiosity. That the people were favourably inclined towards the prisoners, rather than hostile, was shown by the remarks that were made from time to time as they caught a glimpse of Josephine. The sight of her young and innocent beauty seemed to win all hearts, and once more Gregory felt how tragic it was that she could not speak to them. Even a few words from her as she left the sedan to walk up the steps in front of the
Palace would, he felt certain, have been enough to start a revolution in her favour.

As they entered the building, the great court outside was packed to suffocation; but inside it there were only officials, and Gregory knew that by now most of them must be under Kâo's thumb. That Kâo was taking no chances they soon had evidence; for, on entering the second ante-room, a dozen policemen suddenly closed upon and seized them. In a minute their pistols were found and taken away; then they were allowed to go again. It was a move that Gregory had expected might happen before they left the guest house, so he accepted the loss philosophically. Their weapons would have been of value had they been attacked during the night, or in some place where they could quickly have taken cover, but to have drawn them here in the Palace could have led only to a bloody fracas in which they would have been overcome within a few minutes.

After a short wait, the great bronze doors, inlaid with mother of pearl, were thrown open and they were marched into the Council Chamber. Nothing had been altered there since that day in the preceding April, when Gregory had entered it before. Of the seven members of the Council four were the same; but Kâo now sat in the place of honour formerly occupied by his dead brother, up on the dais beside the empty pearl and lapis-lazuli throne. In Tsai-ping's old seat there sat a very young member of his family that Gregory knew only by sight. The other change was that Captain Ah-moi Sung had been elevated to the rank of Mandarin by the death of his aged father.

A-lu-te had told Gregory, only a few hours earlier, that the stalwart Captain had been among those invited to Kâo's banquet, but had been unable to attend owing to a temporary illness. Gregory thought it highly probable that Ah-moi owed his life to his indisposition, as he was just the type of forceful and honest personality that Kâo would have wished to get out of his way. To see him there comforted Gregory greatly, as he felt that Ah-moi would assure him of a fair
hearing; and, although the bluff sailor did not smile at him as the prisoners were led in, he gave him a long, searching, not unfriendly look.

It was Kâo who opened the proceedings. Calmly and with no trace of the vindictiveness he had displayed the previous afternoon, he addressed his fellow Mandarins.

‘Excellencies,' he said. ‘Of the four persons brought before you only the principal criminal is known to you all. I refer to the man Sallust, who having been cast away on our Island last March, has repaid our hospitality by the basest possible treachery. The young man who calls himself Foo will be recognised by our colleague Ah-moi Sung as the Communist agent who stowed away in the yacht. Their male confederate is one Lin Tû-lai, the third son of Lin Wân of Yen-an. The woman is one of Lin Wân's concubines.

‘As they and their histories are all known to me, I am able to reveal to you their many crimes, which have culminated in this childish but wicked attempt to gain wealth and position for themselves by placing an impostor on our throne. Therefore, you will require no other evidence to find them guilty.

‘The history of our search for the Princess Josephine was given to you in great detail by myself, on my return a fortnight ago. The truth of that account has been vouched for by my niece, the lady A-lu-te, who was with me from the beginning to the end of my journey. For the greater part of it we were accompanied by my colleague Ah-moi Sung who, with his officers, will no doubt also have given you a true version of the most distressing happenings on our voyage. Therefore, all the circumstances will be fresh in your minds, and I need not take up your time by repetition of them.

To come at once to the point. There has never been the least doubt in our minds that it was Sallust who murdered the Princess Josephine. My niece and I caught him red-handed. Where we were wrong was in assuming that he murdered her for the considerable amount of money she had with her. That was not his object; but this present conspiracy
reveals it to us. He killed her in order that he might make this attempt to place a woman of his own choosing on our throne. In the light of that revelation all the crimes that preceded the Princess's death are easily explained.

‘While we were in San Francisco he must already have had this plot in mind, and to assist him in it he smuggled aboard the yacht the man Foo. It was, you will recall, Sallust who “discovered” Foo, or to be accurate persuaded our colleague Ah-moi Sung to have him transferred from the stoke-hold to the passenger accommodation, where he could more readily receive and act upon his villainous master's instructions.

‘It will be obvious to you that for Sallust to succeed in his vile plot it was necessary for him to eliminate all the members of the mission; as only then could he have returned to you, posing as the sole survivor of a chapter of accidents, and with a pseudo-Princess whose identity none of you would have been in a position to challenge.

‘The accident, in San Francisco, which deprived us of our honourable colleague Tsai-Ping must have been regarded by Sallust as a piece of good fortune; as it meant that he would have one less murder to carry out. But that was offset by Mr. Wu-ming Loo's insisting on joining the mission; and he had on one occasion before our arrival in San Francisco, met the Princess. As he knew her he was in a position to unmask an impostor, so that made it doubly necessary to eliminate him also.

‘At the inquiry following Wu-ming's death it was Sallust who came under suspicion. Now that a motive for the killing has been established, we can have no doubt that it was he, with the aid of Foo, who threw the unfortunate Wu-ming overboard.

‘We come now to Foo's attempt upon myself. To its miscarriage, I think both I and my niece owe our lives; for it resulted in our colleague Ah-moi Sung's having Foo locked up for the remainder of the voyage. Whether through lack of personal courage or out of caution, Sallust was, apparently, loath to proceed to further violence without the aid
of his henchman. It is now obvious that it was he who enabled Foo to escape when we reached the old mouth of the Hwang-ho; but the accommodation in the sampan was too limited for him to be secreted on board. In consequence, the lady A-lu-te and myself arrived at the House of Lin in safety.

‘At this point, it seems that Sallust decided that he must abandon his original project of producing a false Princess on his own, and keeping to himself all the benefits which might be expected from the imposture planned by him. In any case, it is now evident that while we were at the House of Lin he took Lin Tû-lai into his confidence, and that Lin Tû-lai agreed to become his confederate.

‘Their announcement on their arrival here yesterday will have made clear to you the events that followed. Sallust accompanied us back to Tung-kwan and there cleared the way for a renewal of his ambitious schemes by murdering the Princess, while Lin Tû-lai brought this woman from his father's seraglio to the coast.

‘No doubt they originally hoped to get ahead of me, establish her here, and discredit me upon my arrival; but it is probable that they met with delay in diverting one of the Lin ships from its normal business to bring them to the Island. That they should have arrived after me is fortunate, for that has made it easier for me to establish the truth and reveal to you their villainy.

‘I have only one more thing to say. No ordinary punishment can fit the abominable crimes of which they are guilty. Sallust is the murderer of a Princess of the Imperial House, and the others are his accomplices. I demand that their sentence should be that which they would have received in the old China. The death of a thousand cuts, to be brought to a conclusion on the tenth day by slow strangulation.'

Kâo had twisted events into such a logical sequence that they had become a terrible indictment. He had made a far stronger case than Gregory expected, and no sentence could be more appalling to contemplate than the one he
had demanded. Everything now hung on whether Gregory would be able to get a hearing, and he saw at once that Kâo did not intend to allow him one; for he had already signed to the seven servants standing in the background to bring forward the opium pipes, so that the seven Mandarins might go through the formality of deliberation before pronouncing sentence.

Stepping forward, Gregory said loudly, ‘Excellencies, I claim the right to speak in defence of my friends and myself.'

‘Here, you have no rights,' Kâo replied sternly.

‘By the laws of humanity every accused person has such a right,' Gregory protested.

‘My colleagues know that I speak the truth, and that is enough,' Kâo thundered.

‘It is not enough,' Gregory retorted. ‘In this Island you claim to carry on a great civilisation. The basis of all civilisations is the maintenance of justice. I will ask you a plain question. Does, or does not, this High Council consider itself a Court of Justice?'

‘It does; and justice will be done here,' Kâo said firmly. ‘I order you to be silent, so that we may deliberate and justice take its course.'

‘There can be no justice where the accuser also acts as judge,' Gregory urged desperately. ‘And that is what you propose to do.'

Kâo shrugged his great shoulders. ‘On that I will give way to you. I will refrain from voting, and leave the passing of sentence on you with confidence to my colleagues.'

With a flicker of new hope Gregory looked at Ah-moi and cried, ‘I know your Excellency for an honest man. Will you not support my contention that this court cannot administer true justice unless both sides are given a hearing?'

The big sea captain nodded, then glanced round his fellow Mandarins. ‘He is right. Whatever lies he may tell in an endeavour to persuade us that he did not commit these crimes, it is proper that we should hear him.'

‘It is a waste of time,' snapped Kâo.

But to the immense relief of the four prisoners, the others signified their agreement with Ah-moi, so, drawing a small, thick book from his pocket, Gregory bowed to the Council and began.

‘Excellencies, I too will not weary you with needless repetitions about events already known to you; but I have a big canvas to cover; and I beg that, however unlikely some of the statements that I make may at first appear, you will hear me with patience to the end. Much that I am about to say is, I frankly admit, based only on assumption; but, upon salient points, the evidence I propose to place before you is so incontestable that, when I have done, I am convinced that you will agree that no other explanation completes the picture.

‘First, the basis of our defence is that it was not I but Kâo Hsüan who plotted to become the most influential and wealthy individual on your Island.'

‘It is a lie,' Kâo growled.

Ignoring the interruption, Gregory went on. ‘You will recall that for twenty-five years he was your Export Manager. During those years he lived a life of luxury in the great cities of Europe and America. No one who knows his disposition can doubt that he thoroughly enjoyed the many diversions they have to offer; and that by comparison, on his retirement, he found the restricted life here lacking in all savour. He is moreover an inveterate gambler.

‘I must now make an assumption for which I will later give ample grounds. After a short period of retirement he decided that the only way in which he could escape spending the rest of his life in boredom was by getting control of the Island and becoming its Dictator. That would have enabled him, at times, to leave his own nominees in authority here while making trips abroad again, during which he could have used the Island's resources for his gambling and other pleasures.'

‘This is the most fantastic nonsense,' Kâo cut in. But one
of the Mandarins laughed and said, ‘All the same, it is most diverting. Let him go on.'

Gregory bowed to him and continued. ‘With the death of your late Emperor, Kâo Hsüan saw his chance. Only the life of his brother stood between him and a seat on the Council. Once on it, he believed that with his powerful personality he would be able to dominate it and get himself appointed its President. In support of my contention I ask you to consider what has actually happened since his return to the Island.'

The Mandarin who had laughed now looked away, and the faces of the others took on a new gravity.

Having paused to give due effect to his thrust, Gregory spoke again. ‘Since the Emperor's sons had pre-deceased him, he had no heir; so, had things gone as Kâo Hsüan expected, he would have been under the necessity of doing no more than invite the only man who might block his way to power—the Mandarin Tsai-Ping—and his brother, to dinner.'