The Island Where Time Stands Still (29 page)

‘That's so,' chimed in the third officer, who had just come round from the starboard side. ‘I heard that sort of noise through the porthole of my cabin just after the cries had woken me. Then I heard a splash. That's why I ran aft instead
of for'rard. I felt sure someone had gone overboard; so I raced to the stern and threw out a life-buoy.'

Muffled in a heavy coat the old doctor had now joined the group. In a calm voice he addressed Ah-moi. ‘Captain; at night in such darkness sounds are often apt to be misleading. This evening when I visited Wu-ming his mind was much disturbed. I think the explanation of this tragedy is simple. He felt that after the humiliation he had suffered he could not face the future.'

‘Then why did he cry out for help?' protested the engineer ‘I heard him do so distinctly.'

‘Yes, yes!' chorused several of the others.

The look-out from the crow's-nest had just descended his ladder. He said gruffly, ‘I heard the cries, Sir, and focused my night glasses on to the deck. It was so dark down here that I couldn't see much, except the splash when he went over the side. But I got the impression a moment before that he was struggling with someone.'

‘If you are right, this is no case of suicide,' said Ah-moi tersely. ‘Somebody threw him over.'

‘No!' exclaimed Kâo in a shocked voice. ‘I cannot believe it! For taking his own life he had good cause; but who would wish to murder him?'

Slowly Ah-moi turned, looked hard at Gregory, and muttered, ‘Last night …' He broke off there, but everyone present knew what had happened, and guessed his thought.

A pregnant silence fell. The ring of flat, broad Chinese faces about Gregory took on a new, menacing look, and he found himself the focus of a score of black, accusing eyes. All of them had found him already on the scene of the tragedy when they arrived. With a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he now recalled that the night before, in Ah-moi's presence, he had actually threatened to throw Wu-ming overboard. It was now as clear as if they had cried it aloud that they believed him to be Wu-ming's murderer; and he had no alibi.

It was a very nasty situation. The atmosphere had suddenly become so hostile to Gregory, that for a moment he feared that the angry Chinese might close upon him and throw him overboard to join Wu-ming. But Ah-moi dissolved the group by giving a sharp order:

‘All men on duty will return to their posts. Passengers, officers and servants are to go to the upper deck lounge and wait for me there.'

As they turned away Gregory saw A-lu-te on the fringe of the group. She had been there for some minutes and heard most of what had been said, but she did not speak to him. Up in the lounge he spent a most anxious twenty minutes. Everyone was clearly averse to discussing the tragedy further for the moment; so an awkward silence prevailed while the ship slowly circled on the chance that Wu-ming might be spotted. His weak condition and broken arm made it most unlikely that he had been able to keep himself afloat for more than a few minutes; so none of them was surprised when Ah-moi came in and announced that the attempt had been abandoned as hopeless.

The Captain sat down at one of the tables and questioned everyone in turn. When he came to Foo he asked what he had been doing on deck at that hour of the night; but Foo's explanation was quite adequate. He said that as he had nothing in common with the crew, and much disliked their crowded quarters, he had taken his sleeping mat up to a sheltered corner abaft the stern funnel; and Gregory confirmed that his servant had formed the regular habit of sleeping on deck.

Nothing fresh emerged from anything the others had to
say and, with a stony stare at Gregory, Ah-moi summed matters up:

‘At night in pitch darkness a wrong interpretation may easily be put upon sounds heard from a distance. Wu-ming admittedly had grounds for making away with himself, and the cries for help that were heard may, perhaps, have been made by him after he struck the water. But we cannot ignore these reports that a struggle took place and you, Mr. Sallust, were discovered within a few yards of the spot at which he must have gone overboard. The brutality with which you treated him last night showed the depths of your hatred for him; and even after it you threatened him with death. It is——'

Suddenly A-lu-te interrupted him. She spoke quietly but firmly. ‘Honoured Sir. Permit me to inform you that there is no basis for speculating further on those lines. Mr. Sallust can have had nothing to do with this. I too heard those cries for help, and at the moment they were uttered Mr. Sallust was with me in my cabin.'

In the shocked silence that followed one could have heard a pin drop. Her compatriots stared at her with fascinated horror. It was Gregory who first found his tongue and, determined to deny her statement whatever the cost to himself, he began:

‘The lady A-lu-te is most generously——'

But Kâo cut him short and shouted him down. Turning on his niece, he cried furiously, ‘Have you no shame, girl! Such a lapse from virtue even if confessed in private would call for the severest punishment. But to proclaim it publicly shows such abandon that I've a mind to turn you over to the stokers in the hold!'

A-lu-te was very pale; but she stood up, turned upon him with a withering glance, and declared firmly, ‘Any shame that there is in this lies with my honourable uncle for entertaining such unworthy thoughts. Mr. Sallust told me he meant to have a bath. He had promised to lend me one of the books he bought while in San Francisco. When he came out of the bathroom I heard him pass my cabin; and as I did
not feel like sleep, I called to him to bring me the book. He returned with it, opened the door of my cabin and handed it to me. He was on his way out when we heard Wu-ming's cries.'

Turning again, she bowed to Ah-moi and, a picture of injured innocence, walked with head held high out of the lounge.

There was a moment's awkward silence, but it was at once clear that no one present had the least doubt about the validity of her testimony. Ah-moi stood up, glanced round and said:

‘What the lady A-lu-te has told us must remove from our minds all suspicions that any of us may have entertained about Mr. Sallust. And, as far as we know, no one else on board had any motive for desiring the death of Mr. Wu-ming Loo. I think we must now accept it that those who thought they heard sounds of a struggle were mistaken, and that he took his own life.'

Gregory had been of that opinion all along; but it was with very considerable relief that he went down to his cabin, as, had it not been for A-lu-te's lie, at best he must have remained a suspected murderer, which would have rendered his position in the ship next to intolerable.

The following morning, although the sea had become rather choppy, he went along with her to her stern lounge as usual, and as soon as they were seated, with Su-sen just out of earshot on the far side of the screen, he said in a low voice, ‘I'm most terribly grateful for what you did last night. I need hardly assure you that I'm completely innocent of Wu-ming's death; but things looked pretty black against me, and for a time I was afraid Ah-moi meant to take some action against me merely on suspicion.'

‘I know you too well to believe you capable of so horrible a crime against a helpless man,' she answered slowly. ‘That was why I lied to clear you. All the same, I am convinced that Wu-ming was murdered.'

‘Whatever leads you to think that?'

‘The sounds of a struggle were not accounted for.'

‘In his weak and semi-delirious state he may have fallen on his way to the rail, then dragged himself to it before climbing over.'

‘What about the sailor up in the crow's-nest? He said he thought he saw a struggle going on through his night glasses.'

‘He must have imagined it. And Ah-moi was right last night when he wound up by saying that, apart from myself, no one had any motive for killing Wu-ming. Besides, if anyone had wanted to drag him out of his cabin and throw him overboard they would have waited until about three in the morning, when everybody but the watch would have been sound asleep.'

‘Not necessarily. If someone had chanced to run into the murderer just after the deed, at that hour, it would have been very difficult for him to explain his presence in that part of the ship. As it was done while most of us were still awake there were half a dozen people on the scene within two minutes. That enabled the murderer to mingle with them and the explanation of his presence became as plausible as anyone else's.'

Not for the first time Gregory admired her capacity for sound reasoning. ‘That's a point to you,' he admitted. ‘But it doesn't mean a thing unless you can name someone who might have had a motive for killing him.'

‘I am convinced that it was Foo,' she replied quietly.

‘What; my poor Foo again!' he laughed. ‘Really, you seem to have quite a fixation about him. Next you'll be trying to persuade me that after all it was he who put the poison in my cocktail.'

‘I'd wager my pearls against a string of false ones that he did.'

‘D'you mean to tell me that in spite of the way our test of Wu-ming turned out you still believe him to have been innocent?'

‘Yes. I went yesterday morning with Su-sen to inquire after him. At first he was most loath to allow me to enter his cabin; but believing that sooner or later he would have to suffer the humiliation of coming face to face with me I
thought it better that he should get it over as soon as possible, and while his injuries still made him an object for sympathy. You see, whatever he may have done he was driven to it by his passion for myself. In the eyes of a woman that excuses almost anything; and I was greatly ashamed of having made his love for me the vehicle of his undoing. To restore his face I said that I had come to ask his pardon. We talked then for some time. His distress at having lost control of himself was very great, but, as he honestly believed that you were about to seduce me, understandable. Then he asked me to explain why you had accused him of putting poison in your cocktail. I told him, and he vowed that up till that moment he had not even known that you believed the cocktail to have been the cause of your illness. That led to my telling him about the banana crates. Again, he swore by his ancestors that your suspicions of him were entirely without foundation. His indignation at being thought capable of such crimes appeared so genuine that I could not help but believe him.'

After a moment, Gregory said, ‘Knowing what a kind heart you have, I can quite understand how you felt about him, but I'm sure you let it influence your judgment. After all, having received your forgiveness about the last affair, was it likely that he would voluntarily blacken himself in your eyes by making admissions about the earlier ones? In any case, he would not have dared to do so. For him to have done anything short of denying everything would have been virtually a confession that he murdered his uncle; and if you had passed that on to your uncle, when we got back to the island Mr. Wu-ming Loo would have been for the high-jump.'

A-lu-te shook her dark head. ‘Your argument is a good one, but not good enough to make me alter my opinion. And if I am right it must have been Foo who attempted to poison you.'

‘Hang it all, that doesn't make sense! Two nights ago when I was being attacked by Wu-ming, Foo came to my rescue.'

‘No; since he was spying on Wu-ming he ought to have been able to prevent the attack taking place at all. As it was he waited, no doubt hoping that Wu-ming would kill you for him. It was not until Foo saw that you had disarmed Wu-ming that he disclosed his presence and cleverly gave the impression that he had rushed in to help you.'

‘I think you are being unfair to Foo. The crisis occupied only a few seconds, and after he saw Wu-ming snatch the axe from the bracket he had quite a way to run.'

‘Gregory, believe me!' A-lu-te leaned forward earnestly. ‘It is Foo who is the evil genius on this ship. I am convinced that he is Quong-Yü's agent, and was put on board to wreck our chances of ever reaching Josephine. They got Tsai-Ping out of the way in San Francisco. Then, as the next most feared opponent to their plans, Foo tried to murder you. He failed, but seized the opportunity of Wu-ming's being incapable of defending himself to eliminate him. Next he will make another attempt on you, or perhaps on Uncle Kâo.'

‘My dear, you really are letting your imagination run away with you. There is not one atom of proof to support your theory. On the other hand we proved conclusively that Wu-ming's jealousy of me had become such an obsession that he would have killed me if he could. Besides, Foo is such a little chap. He hasn't the strength to drag a struggling man out of his cabin, round the corner, across the deck, and chuck him overboard.'

‘He might have gone into Wu-ming's cabin and stunned him with a blow on the head. After that the physical effort would not have been beyond him.'

‘If Wu-ming had been unconscious he could not have called for help.'

‘He might have come round at the last moment.'

Gregory sighed. ‘I'm sorry; but having come to know young Foo so well, and the mildness of his disposition, I simply cannot believe it. If you are really so set in your idea that Wu-ming was murdered, it would be more plausible to suggest that it was your uncle and P'ei who threw him over
board. Foo and I encountered them a moment after we had met; so they were already on the scene just as much as he was.'

‘Uncle Kâo could have had no possible reason for murdering Wu-ming.'

‘Exactly. And I don't suggest for one moment that he did. I don't believe anyone else did, either. He was obviously unhinged when he attacked me, and having made such a mess of things all round must have decided him to commit suicide.'

For some time longer they argued the matter without getting any further. A-lu-te again begged Gregory to get rid of Foo, but he felt that it would be most unjust to give in to her; so he stuck out against it. Yet two nights later another affair, pregnant with uncertainties and sinister possibilities, resulted in his having to do so.