The Island Where Time Stands Still

by Dennis Wheatley

  In that he proved right; the only things that marred his enjoyment of the five days that followed were the wind-borne dust of the daily trek, the cold of the nights, and intermittent bouts of anxiety about the tricky situation in which he would find himself when he arrived.

  Considering the simple mentalities of Chou and his men, their reaction to Shih-niang’s death could not possibly be put down to a cleverly conceived piece of acting; so Gregory was now fully convinced that they had had nothing to do with it. The conclusion threw him back on the theory that the Communists were at the bottom of it, as the only other plausible one he had been able to evolve; but to accept it left numerous blanks in the picture which he could not even rough in by the wildest guessing.

  More than once, as he puzzled over it, he wished that he was one of those really clever people about whom one reads in detective fiction. If he had had a lisp and a head like an egg, or been a kindly old gentleman who went about sniffing everything, or a spinster who rarely left her armchair and her knitting, or the remarkable blind chap who just felt the things that ham-handed police superintendents brought to him, no doubt he would have had the solution to all the mysteries—from the falling of the banana crates on Tsai-Ping’s head up to the knifing of Shih-niang—in a flash. Any of them would have said:

  ‘My poor fellow, you have allowed that fat, jolly Kâo to pull the wool over your eyes all along. He may appear lazy but he is not, and he wants to be King of the Island. Moreover he is the one person who has had the opportunity to commit all these crimes.’ And they would have proceeded to give six chapters on how he did them. Then, just as one was about to run off and get a warrant out for Kâo’s arrest, they would give a gentle chuckle—or knock back five fingers of neat Rye—and, in the manner of the late Peter Cheyney, proceed to demolish the whole of their own theory. Having established the innocence of the happy-go-lucky Kâo on all counts, they would conclude:

  ‘In all crimes cherchez la femme. Surely you learnt that in your kindergarten. You have allowed love to bemuse you, dear boy. The charming A-lu-te is by far the most intelligent woman in the Island, and she aspires to become another Empress Yehonala. To eliminate her only possible rival was her real reason for getting herself made a member of the mission. Her big mistake was to take you with her. If she hadn’t she would never have been let in for that awful journey right into the heart of China. Of course, up to nearly the end of your stay in San Francisco she thought of you as only a harmless gigolo; but the moment you called in the F.B.I. she realised what a danger her dear, honest, not very intelligent Gregory might be to her plans, and decided that he must be eliminated. To begin with, naturally, she made the even more stupid Wu-ming her tool; but as he failed to do you in, even with a hatchet, and looked like giving her away, she and her maid Su-sen chucked him overboard. As the poor chap was half dead already they had only to give him a rap on the head and drag him a few yards. The snake in your bunk was a typical woman’s trick. Nine out of ten murderesses go for poison in one form or another. As for knifing Shih-niang, I expect she rather enjoyed that. After all she seems to have been quite fond of you, and it must have rather annoyed her to find you petting another young woman with no clothes on.’

  At the conclusion of such day-dreams as these Gregory was apt to sigh. He knew as many different ways of killing people as Shih-niang had known of making love, and he was prepared to put any of them into practice against the enemies of Britain at any time, but detection had never been his line. To have worked it all out in a deck-chair, with a long cool drink to hand, while listening to the humming of the bees in the fragrance of a Surrey garden, would have been enchanting; but such joys were not for him. Since he was determined to know the truth, he must jog along on his pony the many weary dusty miles to Yen-an, and, when he got there, once more stick out his neck.

  Shortly before midday on the sixth day after they had left Tung-kwan, they came over the last ridge and up through the last valley to the great House of Lin. As they approached, the man in the watch-tower sounded his trumpet, the gates were opened and a number of the armed retainers appeared at the entrance of the courtyard; but this time no figure in white flannels hurried out to greet them.

  As they passed through the gates Gregory saw that the bustle and activity inside them was no less than it had been when he had left there thirteen days before. Then, within a few minutes of dismounting, he had the answer to one of his riddles. His tentative assumption that Tû-lai might have arranged for a false message to be sent to himself, so as to avoid being at hand when his father’s order for the killing of Shih-niang was carried out, had no foundation. As reported by the messenger, Lin Wân had died of a heart attack on the night of October the 5th.

  Gregory had received nothing but kindness from the old merchant prince; but, the circumstances being as they were, he could not help feeling relief that it was the son, and not the father, with whom he would have to deal. A servant at once took the news of his arrival to his master, and returning, led him through to the room that Lin Wân had used as an office. Tû-lai, clad in European clothes, was seated at the big desk engaged in sorting out a mass of papers.

  As Gregory came in he stood up, gave him a sad but friendly smile, and said: ‘It is a great surprise to see you again so soon; but you are very welcome. Please sit down. Can I offer you some refreshment?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Gregory smiled. ‘I could do with a long drink to wash the dust out of my throat—a Gin-sling or something of that kind.’

  Tû-lai lisped an order to the servant who had shown Gregory in, then turned back to him. ‘If we were in my own room I would mix you one myself. But I have had to move in here because my father was a man of many secrets, and for the past week I have been trying to master his affairs.’

  As Gregory sat down, he noticed on a side table near the desk an opium pipe with a beautifully carved jade holder. Following the Chinese custom, that however important one’s business one should never enter upon it before a few exchanges having little significance have been made, he remarked:

  ‘Surely that is Kâo’s pipe. It is such a lovely thing that I’ve often admired it. I’m sure it must be.’

  ‘If it is he must have forgotten it,’ Tû-lai replied. ‘While you were staying in the house he and my father smoked a few pipes in here together every evening. But don’t let’s stand on ceremony. Tell me what brings you here? I trust that your return does not mean that any misfortune has overtaken the lady A-lu-te?’

  Gregory’s face at once became grave. ‘No. When I last saw her, six nights ago, she was in excellent health. But the same cannot be said for the other young woman who accompanied us to Tung-kwan.’

  ‘You mean the singing girl, Shih-niang?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Tû-lai nodded. ‘From what you say I infer that she is dead.’

  ‘Yes; murdered.’

  ‘I feared that unlucky fate would overtake her.’

  ‘Unfortunately she left it too late to act upon your warning.’

  ‘So you knew about that?’

  ‘She told me of it herself; but only a few moments before she was killed. I wonder, though, that since you felt sufficient qualms about the matter to warn her of her danger, you stopped short of taking some step which would have saved the poor girl’s life.’

  With a shrug, Tû-lai spread out his hands. ‘Mr. Sallust, having spent some time in China, you must be aware that the one thing a dutiful son can never bring himself to do is interfere in the affairs of his father.’

  ‘I grant you that; but had she taken your warning in time you would have done so. While you were about it, why not have gone the whole hog?’

  ‘Normally I should have done nothing at all. To be frank I disapproved most strongly of the whole affair; but it was not my business. As things were, I had just been overwhelmed by the news of my father’s death. I was in a highly emotional state, and feeling compassion for the girl I acted on impulse. You must forgive me, though, if I fail to underst
and your attitude, as you must have taken part in her murder.’

  ‘I!’ exclaimed Gregory aghast. ‘Whatever makes you think that? Everything points to her having been killed by an agent of your father’s.’

  ‘My father had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Oh, come! It was his singing-girl who was passed off as the Princess, and you have just said that you did not like to interfere because it was his affair. You knew that her death had been decreed, and to suggest now that he did not does not make sense.’

  ‘You misunderstand me. He knew, of course, what was planned; but the idea of drowning her was not his, and none of his people was to play any part in it.’

  ‘Drowning her?’

  ‘Yes. It was decided that one night when you were going down the river she should be put overboard from the sampan and held under until she was dead. Did she not die that way?’

  ‘No. We had not started on the river journey.’

  ‘Of course. How stupid of me. Had you done so, you would not have had time to get back here so soon; but my father’s funeral ceremonies have caused me to lose count of the days. Drowning was chosen for her because afterwards there would have been nothing to show that she had not fallen in by accident. Since she was not drowned, how did she die?’

  ‘She was knifed in her room at the inn.’

  ‘Did you catch her trying to get away; or was that owing to some change of plan at the last moment?’

  ‘I had no more to do with it than you had,’ Gregory replied tersely.

  Tû-lai gave him a sceptical look. ‘You seem to have forgotten your admission of a few moments back, that you were with her when she was killed.’

  ‘I did not actually say that, although it was so. Nevertheless I had no part in planning her death and I was unable to prevent it.’

  At that moment the servant entered with the Gin-sling. Gregory took a long drink, and as the man left the room Tû-lai said: ‘Anyhow I can hardly suppose that you have come all the way back here to reproach me for not having prevented Shih-niang’s murder. What reason led you to return?’

  Gregory had given much thought to the reply he should make to this question, and had decided to attempt a colossal bluff; so he said quietly, ‘Kâo sent me back to collect the real Princess.’

  ‘Really!’ Tû-lai raised his eyebrows. ‘I find that rather surprising. Still, you can have her with pleasure—providing you’ve brought the money.’

  With a slight quickening of the heart, Gregory remarked, ‘She is still here, then.’

  ‘Certainly. Why should you have supposed that I had sent her away during the past fortnight?’

  ‘To be honest, I didn’t know for certain that she was here when I was here before,’ Gregory confessed. ‘In fact, although I ought to have tumbled to it from the beginning I didn’t realise that Shih-niang was a fake until she told me so herself on our reaching Tung-kwan.’

  Tû-lai’s face suddenly broke into a boyish grin. ‘Well, just fancy that! I naturally assumed you were in the plot. No wonder you were taken by surprise when she was murdered. I apologise for having disbelieved you. Anyhow, if you’ve brought the cash you can take Josephine away whenever you like.’

  With some hesitation Gregory produced Shih-niang’s satchel and, laying it on the desk, said, ‘I take it this is the money that you refer to?’

  Emptying out the satchel, Tû-lai gave the notes it had contained a few flicks with his fingers, then he frowned at Gregory and asked, ‘What sort of joke is this?’

  Gregory shrugged. ‘Personally I don’t think there is much of a joke about it. That is the money your father paid Shih-niang to impersonate Josephine. The poor girl died under the impression that it was to get it back that your father had arranged for her to be killed. As I dropped some of the notes it is a bit short of the original ten thousand dollars; but of course I’ll make it up out of the money I have on me.’

  ‘Do you really think this paltry sum is what I meant by money?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m very much at sea in this whole business,’ Gregory admitted. ‘You say your father had no hand in Shih-niang’s death; but your mention of money made me think that perhaps, after all, he had; although I have thought all along that he was not the sort of man who would either go back on a bargain or kill one of his own concubines for a fist full of dollar bills.’

  ‘And you were right. The sum which Kâo agreed to pay my father for the Princess was half-a-million dollars!’

  ‘I see. So you are holding her to ransom?’

  Tû-lai smiled. ‘My father was a very able business man, and he preferred to use business terms. No doubt he would have said that this payment was to reimburse him for the expenses to which he had been put in connection with the Princess. But, if you wish, I have no objection to speaking of it as her ransom. “A rose by any other name …” you know. However, the thing which does concern me is—can I hope that you are now about to produce this handsome contribution to the maintenance of the House of Lin? Or is it that, knowing my father to be dead and believing me to have only scant knowledge of his affairs, Kâo Hsüan sent you back here in the hope that you might succeed in putting a fast one over on me?’

  Gregory smiled back. ‘You can rule out any hope of the half-million dollars.’

  ‘I feared as much,’ Tû-lai remarked amiably. ‘As Kâo had no means of raising such a sum before he arrived here, I did not see how he could possibly have managed to do so in the past week. I may take it, then, that my father’s dear old friend conceived the charming idea of sending you to try your hand at cheating the poor orphan?’

  ‘No; that’s not right either.’ Gregory paused for a moment, then leaned forward a little. ‘Look; d’you mind if we start again from the beginning. It’s clear to me now that I arrived here with a lot of misconceptions about your father and yourself. On that account I have not been altogether honest with you. And, of course, it’s obvious that you have quite a wrong idea of the part that I have played in this affair. Let’s be frank with one another and put all our cards on the table.’

  Tû-lai gave a slightly ironical bow. ‘Permit me to observe that, so far, I have told no lies to you.’

  ‘I didn’t suggest you had,’ Gregory replied with a disarming smile. ‘I was simply apologising for my own lapses. All the same, there must be a lot that I know about this set-up that you don’t, and vice versa. Are you willing to come clean with me if I come clean with you?’

  ‘Why not? The affair intrigues me greatly, and there are still many things about it that I don’t understand. As you are my guest I will offer you the privilege of speaking first.’

  As Gregory acknowledged the courtesy he had a slightly uneasy feeling. Perhaps it was his imagination but he thought he had detected a slightly sinister inflection on the word ‘Guest’. In this great house, all the inmates of which were virtually Tû-lai’s slaves, and which lay the best part of a month’s journey from the nearest British Consulate, what was there to stop the word ‘guest’ being converted into ‘prisoner’?

  But he had known the risk he would have to run when he had decided to return to it; so he proceeded to give a truthful account of the way in which Shih-niang had met her end, and of how, by displaying his British passport, he had bluffed Chou into covering his escape from Tung-kwan. Then he said:

  ‘So, you see, I was lying to you when I told you that Kâo had sent me to collect the real Princess. I came back to try to get hold of her on my own account; but I had no idea that you were holding her to ransom, and I had no intention of trying to make money out of the business if I succeeded.’

  Tû-lai nodded. ‘You interest me more than ever. Do go on. If you are not after money, what did you hope to gain by obtaining possession of Josephine?’

  ‘Nothing; except a certain personal satisfaction. After these many months of unsuccessful search for her, and the people of the Island having been told that she was dead, I should have got a big thrill from taking her back there and presenting her to the
lady A-lu-te.’

  ‘A-lu-te.’ Tû-lai repeated with a little sigh. ‘And what part do you think that lovely lady has played in all this?’

  ‘No part at all, except to pursue the search for the Princess with all the vigour of which she is capable. It was she who was largely responsible for badgering her lazy uncle into coming to China, when he would have preferred to give up the hunt before we left San Francisco. I am convinced that she had no idea at all that your father had foisted a fake Princess on us, or the least suspicion that the girl was to be murdered.’

  ‘I am glad you believe that, for I am also convinced that she would never have stooped to soil her hands with this dirty business.’

  For a moment they were silent, then Gregory said, ‘Now it is your turn. So far, I have learned only three things from our talk. Namely that the Princess is here; that you are asking half a million dollars’ ransom for her; and that your father and Kâo entered into a conspiracy in which Shih-niang was to be passed off as Josephine, and afterwards murdered. What else can you tell me?’

  ‘I’m afraid you will find my contribution somewhat disappointing,’ Tû-lai replied thoughtfully. ‘You see, for most of the year I am away from home and I was not here when my father returned from his last trip to America. Had I been, no doubt he would have told me the Princess’s history then, and why he had brought her back with him. As it was I did not even know of her existence until about five weeks ago, and I had been home for several days before I learned of her presence here. That same afternoon the lady Fan-ti took me to the women’s quarters and presented me to her; then, a few evenings later, it was suggested that she would make a charming wife for me.’