The Island Where Time Stands Still (46 page)

‘Yes; it looks like a long job,' Gregory agreed. ‘And I suppose in the meantime you would not consider allowing me to take Josephine away, unless I could produce half a million dollars.'

Tû-lai smiled. ‘I fear my honoured father would turn in his newly-made grave if I accepted much less for her; but I am open to an offer.'

‘You think, though, that I am in no position to make you one,' Gregory smiled back.

‘If you were telling the truth when you said you did not know that my father was holding the Princess to ransom until I told you of it this morning, I should find it surprising to learn that you arrived here carrying a small fortune on you.'

‘I am not. But say I were, and I handed the half-million over, what would its real value be to you?'

‘I don't quite understand what you are driving at,' Tû-lai replied with a puzzled frown.

‘I mean, in view of what you told A-lu-te and myself about the Communists, and the way in which they now check up on all your financial transactions, what could you manage to keep for yourself out of such a sum?'

‘Oh, I see! Well, the answer to that is that as I should not be disposing of a tangible asset in exchange for it, I should be under no necessity to declare it. But, of course, to be of any real value I should have to get it out of the country. Smuggling currency is both difficult and expensive, and there is in addition always the risk that an agent may be caught, which means the complete loss of the consignment he is carrying. I suppose I should have to consider myself lucky if I could get anything over two hundred thousand dollars of it safely banked outside China.'

‘You must add to your liabilities the possibility of one of these smuggling operations being traced back to you. If that happened it would probably cost you the best part of what you had left to buy yourself off from being put in a Communist jail. I think you'll agree that to be relieved of any such risk, and the worry inseparable from conducting such an operation, would be worth another hundred thousand.'

‘I suppose it would. But I still don't see where this discussion is leading us.'

‘Simply to this. I am in no position to make you a concrete offer of any kind. But I know people who I am certain would empower me to do so if I were able to get in touch with them. As it is I can only ask you to accept my word for that, and rely on their goodwill. You are a representative of one of the oldest families in China, and one which was invited to settle in the Island when it was first colonised. Let me take Josephine back there and come with us yourself. If, out of gratitude, the Council does not vote you a hundred thousand dollar's worth of real estate, with a pleasant house, servants and all the rest of it, I'll eat my hat.'

‘
Mon Dieu
!' Tû-lai smacked his fist down on his desk and sprang to his feet. ‘This is a terrific idea! Terrific!'

Gregory also stood up, and, grinning at him, said, ‘Can I take it the deal is on, then?'

‘Of course it is on!' exclaimed Tû-lai, shaking him warmly by the hand. ‘Nothing could suit me better. What a laugh we shall have at having got the best of that fat fool Kâo! And I shall see the enchanting lady A-lu-te again.'

That factor, as an inescapable commitment implicit in the offer, had not escaped Gregory, and it was the one thing which had caused him to hesitate before making it. He was uneasily conscious that to invite such a likeable rival to settle in the Island might well prove against his own interests. Yet unaided it would have been very difficult for him to get back there; wheras Tû-lai, having a fleet of ships at his disposal, could get him there with comparative ease. And Tû-lai held the Princess, without whom he would have been running his head into a noose if he returned at all. On balance, he felt that he might well leave the future to take care of itself, and that by returning to the House of Lin he had achieved a remarkable triumph.

As these thoughts were coursing through his mind Tû-lai said, ‘Come; it is long past lunch-time. Our fascinating talk has led me to forget my duties as a host, and you must be famished. After we have eaten I will take you to the women's quarters and present you to the real Princess.'

They fed in Tû-lai's own apartments and over an excellent meal, cooked by a French-trained chef, he talked excitedly of their plans, asking Gregory all sorts of questions about the Island, and speculating on how soon he could wind up his father's affairs so that they could set off there. When coffee was served he sent a servant to request Madame Fan-ti's permission for them to wait upon her, and as soon as her consent was brought, they walked through several long airy corridors to her suite.

They found her sitting in her boudoir with her hands crossed idly in her lap, and dressed in the pure white of deep mourning. It was evident that although eleven days had elapsed since her husband's death, she had not yet recovered from the shock and, owing to the depth of her grief, was still hardly conscious of the world around her.

Having apologised for disturbing her, Tû-lai said, ‘Dear
Aunt, you will remember Mr. Sallust. He has returned from Tung-kwan and I am anxious to present him to the real Princess Josephine without delay. May I have your permission to send for her, in order that I may do so?'

‘Josephine,' murmured the elderly lady in a grief-stricken and slightly bewildered voice. ‘Josephine; our little Princess. But have they not told you about her?'

‘Told me what, dear Aunt?'

‘I should have done so myself; but these last days I … I …' Two large tears rolled form the corners of her once beautiful eyes and ran down her withered cheeks.

‘Pray calm yourself,' begged Tû-lai, and tell us what has happened to her. Is she ill?'

Madame Fan-ti sadly shook her head. ‘No; but two nights ago the poor child was abducted. A Communist agent got into the women's quarters and stole her away.'

Gregory had been tempted to return to the House of Lin by the possibility that there he might fathom the mystery that surrounded the Princess Josephine; but for his chances of being able to take her back to the Island he would not have given a row of beans.

As he had seen it, Shih-niang's substitution for her had suggested that she was either dead or—if she ever had been an inmate of the great House of Lin at all—no longer there. If she were there, and old Lin Wân was still alive, to get her out of his clutches would prove about as difficult as getting gold out of the Bank of England. If he were dead there was no reason to suppose that his son would be any more ready to hand, her over. Lastly, even could he be persuaded or tricked into doing so, there remained the almost insoluble problem of getting her across the Pacific to an island which was not served by any regular means of transport.

Within a little over an hour of Gregory's arrival all these doubts and difficulties had been miraculously resolved. The girl was said to be there, Lin Wân was dead, and by skilful negotiation Gregory had achieved the seemingly impossible. Tû-lai had become his eager ally, and was already planning a triumphant arrival at the Island in one of the Lin ships. Yet now, just as Gregory was beginning fully to savour the sweets of success, Madame Fan-ti's revelation that Josephine had been abducted turned them to dust and ashes in his mouth.

If anything could have added to his anger and frustration it was her statement that Josephine had been carried off by a Communist agent. After his talk with Tû-lai it had
at least seemed clear that Kâo had either killed Shih-niang himself or employed someone else to do so. That he had planned her death was beyond dispute, but his plan had been to drown her one night after they had left Tung-kwan by river. As she had been knifed before they left, Kâo, after all, might have had nothing to do with it. As the Communists had actually kidnapped Josephine, it now appeared obvious that they had been involved in the affair from the beginning; so it might be that another of their agents had forestalled Kâo and, believing Shih-niang to be the real Princess, killed her before he had a chance to do so himself.

There was yet another possibility. Had Kâo a tie-up with the Communists? Knowing himself to be unable to get the best of Lin Wân on his own, had he bought their help, or entered into some sort of deal with them? Perhaps he had got them to rid him of Shih-niang, and Josephine was now being taken south by them to join them either in Tung-kwan or some city further east. Without the government knowing anything about the matter, Kâo might have made it worth while for the local Communist boss in Tung-kwan to put his bravos on the job, in the same way that Lin Wân had employed Quong-Yü to have Josephine kidnapped in San Francisco. A bribe of say, ten thousand dollars might quite well have been sufficient to secure such co-operation; and for Kâo, at that price, it would have been dirt cheap compared with having to try to raise half a million for Lin Wân.

While these new speculations were coursing swiftly through Gregory's mind, Madame Fan-ti was blaming herself to Tû-lai for having neglected to report Josephine's disappearance to him. He assured her that in her state of grief such an oversight was readily understandable, and, having obtained the poor lady's permission to question all her women, they left her.

Tû-lai explained to Gregory that although the women of the head of the house, and of his brothers and sons, continued to occupy a separate portion of it, which in the old
days had been the seraglio, for the past twenty-five years or more they had no longer been kept strictly in purdah. The custom of employing eunuchs to guard them had gradually fallen into disuse after China became a Republic, and instead elderly concubines or old nurses had been made responsible for the good behaviour of the younger ones.

The wives, whose honour was never doubted, were free to go about as they pleased and the unmarried girls, although always accompanied by a duenna, were allowed a fair degree of liberty, which included receiving visits from approved males and making occasional visits to the bazaars in the nearby city. In the case of the latter, as the duennas were not always above taking bribes, this had now and then led to clandestine love affairs; but if discovered, lapses of that kind resulted in all concerned receiving heavy punishment.

In consequence, while such intrigues were rare, a resourceful man might have pretended to have fallen in love with Josephine after seeing her about and, by lavish payments to one or more of the old women, secured help to get in to her after everyone had gone to sleep. Then, with a free field and the night before him, he might either have used some trick to induce her to come away with him, or, as she could not cry out, forced her to do so.

For the best part of two hours Tû-lai questioned a succession of Josephine's companions, duennas and servants. None of them would admit to having had any part in the affair. The belief that the Communist agent who had arrived shortly after the Lord Kâo Hsüan's party, was at the bottom of it was based on the fact that on several occasions when she had passed through the great courtyard he had respectfully handed her bunches of flowers. A snivelling old woman begged forgiveness for having allowed him to do so, and said that, as the poor dumb girl could not even exchange a word with him, she had felt there could be no harm in letting her enjoy these tributes of admiration.

It emerged that no doors had been forced or, apparently,
been treacherously opened from within; but a rope had been lowered to the ground from the balustrade of the women's court and left dangling there. As the tall wall below the terrace had a slightly inward slope, with the aid of a rope it would not have been difficult to scale it; so it looked as if someone inside had lowered the rope and that was the way the man had got in. On the other hand, he might have been let in, and brought it with him coiled round his waist under his outer garment. In any case, there could be little doubt that was the way they left; thus evading the possibility of being challenged when making their way out through the great courtyard.

It was that which favoured the theory of an abduction rather than an elopement. An enamoured couple could have slipped through the gates soon after they were opened at dawn with little risk of discovery, whereas to drag even a dumb girl that far, and through them, unwillingly, without someone intervening, would have been next to impossible; but to have rendered her unconscious then lowered her over the wall would have been easy.

The only pieces of concrete information gained from the inquiry were that no man other than the Communist agent had manifested any interest in Josephine; that from his description he was undoubtedly the same man as the Communist who had come up with the caravan from Tung-kwan; and that some quite valuable pieces of jewellery that Lin Wân and Madame Fan-ti had given Josephine since she had been living in their house had disappeared with her.

Tû-lai ordered three women whom he considered had been lax in their duties to be locked up on a diet of un-husked rice and water until further notice, then retired to his own apartments with Gregory for a council of war.

The prospect of securing a property in the Island had so captured his imagination that he was now determined to do his utmost to get Josephine back, even if it meant coming into conflict with the government. That this might be so was certainly to be feared as, having discussed the idea that Kâo
had possibly employed a local Communist boss to get hold of Josephine for him, they dismissed it.

Tempting as it was to adopt such a theory it had to be ruled out owing to Lin Wân's account of what had occurred in San Francisco. He had said that the Communists there had threatened both Madame Août and her daughter with death if they accepted General Chiang Kai-shek's invitation to go to Formosa, and that Madame Août had been murdered because she had ignored their warning. That meant they had been after Josephine ever since.

Gregory filled in the gap for Tû-lai by giving him a résumé of the puzzling events which had taken place during the journey from San Francisco to Antung-Ku. Of them, they decided, there could be only one explanation. Having lost trace of Josephine after her mother's death, the Communists had kept the Aoûts' apartment under observation in case she returned to it. On learning about the inquiries Tsai-Ping was making of everyone in the block, they had had him followed to the yacht; then smuggled Foo on board so that if the mission succeeded in tracing Josephine it would lead him to her. Either under instructions, or because he was a fanatical Marxist, he had endeavoured to liquidate the most potentially dangerous personalities of the mission well before they could reach their objective. At Antung-Ku, the first Chinese town they had entered, it seemed probable that he had passed on such information as he had obtained and been relieved of his task. There was, however, the possibility that still sticking to the trail that might lead to Josephine, he had disguised himself at Tung-kwan in the shapeless garments worn by caravan travellers, come on to the great House of Lin, and, a fortnight later, succeeded in abducting her.