The Island Where Time Stands Still

by Dennis Wheatley

  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.

  But, whether it was Foo, or some other Communist agent, who had carried off Josephine made little difference. Apparently the threat issued in San Francisco to kill her still stood, and it looked now as if two or more agents had been put on to hunt her down independently. If so, and one of them in Tung-kwan had killed Shih-niang in mistake for her, she could count herself lucky that the other had kidnapped her instead of stabbing her to death in her bed. It seemed probable that the man who had got hold of her had spared her temporarily only so that she might be taken before some higher authority, and questioned about matters connected with the House of Lin before she was dispatched. In any case, if there was still a chance of saving her, every moment counted; so immediate action must be taken.

  While Tû-lai changed into Chinese riding clothes he sent orders that every caravan guard available should be mustered; then he and Gregory anxiously debated in which direction they should set off. Gregory thought it improbable that Josephine was being taken down to Tung-kwan as, if so, he should have passed her on the road the day before. A further factor was that the nearest Communist headquarters were in Yen-an, so it seemed more likely that she had been taken there.

  In the great courtyard they found twenty-two strong pony riders assembled. From Tû-lai’s enquiries about Josephine’s disappearance they had already guessed what was in the wind; so when he appeared they greeted him with excited shouts. As Gregory rode up into the lead beside Tû-lai, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was half past three; then they cantered out of the gates like mediaeval nobles leaving a castle to go to war, with their wild retainers waving their weapons, uttering fierce cries and thundering along behind them.

  The city of Yen-an was only a few miles away, and on crossing the next rise they could see its ancient mud walls in the distance. A quarter of an hour’s hard riding brought them to a large open space in its centre, one side of which was occupied by a caravanserai very similar to the one in Tung-kwan. Having led his cavalcade into its spacious courtyard, Tû-lai gave orders to dismount and tie up the ponies. Then he calle
d the men round him, gave them their instructions, and told them that they were to report back there in an hour.

  As they dispersed he led Gregory through the building to a garden at its back. Like the inn at Tung-kwan it had a score of tables and sitting down at one of them he ordered hot wine to be brought. Turning to Gregory as the servant left them, he said:

  ‘A drink will serve to pass the time. There is nothing we can do ourselves, and my men will make far better detectives than we should. All of them know our bird by sight; so if he is in the town they will soon ferret him out, and the warders at the prison are great gossips. Through them we’ll learn if Josephine is in the women’s cells—or if she has already been done in by these Communist swine.’

  The hour of waiting seemed a long one, but at last it was over and they went out to the courtyard to hear the men’s reports. The information they had gathered was reassuring but very puzzling.

  Josephine was not in the prison, neither had any young woman remotely resembling her been brought in during the past forty hours. On the other hand there was ample evidence that the Communist agent they sought had been in the town the previous day.

  The first report of his appearance was at the inn itself early in the morning. He had arrived on foot and in a very groggy condition. His story was that he had met with an accident and injured the back of his head. When his wound had been attended to and he had eaten a light meal he had wanted to leave again at once, but he was still so shaky that he had been persuaded to lie down for a few hours. Later he had asked the address of an honest merchant and gone out. On his return he had bought two riding ponies and hired two mounted men to accompany him. Then, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, they had set off, leaving the city by its north gate.

  The merchant had been questioned, and said that he had bought from a man a short string of not very large, but well-matched, pearls for twenty-four thousand J.M.P. dollars, which, although only a little over thirty English pounds by the rate of exchange, was a sum with considerable purchasing power in those remote regions. As far as had been discovered the only other transactions entered into by the man while in Yen-an were the purchase of blankets, a haversack, a water-bottle and a heavy bludgeon; and he had neither visited the Communist headquarters nor made contact with any of his uniformed colleagues.

  To make anything tangible of this account was most difficult. The wound on the back of the head sounded as if the man had been attacked from behind, rather than had a fall: but, if so, by whom? It was, of course, possible that Josephine had seized an opportunity when his back was turned to her to strike him down, although such an act of resolution by a young girl who had led an exceptionally sheltered life seemed highly unlikely. And if she had, what then? Presumably he had lain unconscious for several hours, while she had made off with the ponies. But, if so, why had she not returned to the House of Lin?

  Tû-lai suggested that as soon as the man had her clear of the house, he had set about killing her, and fear had lent her the strength to inflict the injury on him in her death struggle; but that did not explain why he had arrived in Yen-an on foot. Gregory favoured the idea that they had been set upon by robbers who, having beaten up the man, had made off with the girl and the ponies to their own village; but that did not explain why, on his arrival in Yen-an, he had not gone straight to the Communist headquarters for help to trace and recapture her, instead of to the inn. Why, too, he should have hired two companions, bought a spare mount, and ridden off towards the north defied their wildest speculation.

  To their next move there was only one pointer. As the Communist had carried Josephine off he must know what had happened to her; therefore if they gave chase and could overtake him they should be able to squeeze the truth out of him. Before departing, in order to cover their respective theories, Tû-lai dispatched four men back the way they had come to search the defiles on either side of the road for Josephine’s body, and a further six to the nearest villages round about to inquire of the headmen regarding the activities of robbers, and threaten with his dire displeasure any one of them who later might be proved to have had knowledge of Josephine’s whereabouts without disclosing it. Soon after five o’clock, with the remaining twelve men of their escort shouting lustily once more, they galloped in a cloud of dust out of the north gate of Yen-an.

  The track again led alongside a river; but now it was the little Yen-ho, a smaller tributary of the great Hwang-ho than that along the valley of which ran the greater part of the road from Tung-kwan. In long shallow stretches, broken here and there by foaming rapids, it meandered from its source in the north-west. The nearest township on it was An-sai, which lay something over twenty miles away.

  As their ponies were still fresh they got there at half past seven, and in the afterglow of a marvellous sunset at once set about making their enquiries. Within ten minutes they learned that on the previous day the man they were after and his two companions had reached there about half past four, then, after halting for a meal, had pushed on up the valley. As the pursued had a lead of some twenty-six hours, the only hope of catching them up lay in riding for most of the night; so, having watered the ponies, they again took the road.

  An hour and a half later the river had dwindled to a brook and they were within a few miles of its source. It was now fully dark and on rounding a sudden bend in the track Gregory would have ridden on, had not Tû-lai called on him to halt. Having known the region since boyhood the young Chinaman was aware that the road forked there. One of its branches ran west of north to the township of Tsing-pien, which lay about forty miles away, just inside the Great Wall; the other took a more westerly course through the township of Poa-an, then led up to Chwan-tsing, another town just inside the Great Wall, but thirty miles or more further off.

  As it was impossible to tell which road their quarry had taken, it was decided that with Chou for guide, and five of the men, Gregory should head for Tsing-pien, while Tû-lai and the other six headed for Chwan-tsing. It was further agreed that on reaching their destinations, whichever of them had lost the track should turn along inside the Great Wall to rejoin the other, or one of the men who would be left behind with a message for him.

  Soon after they parted the moon came up; so the going became easier, but by one in the morning it was well down in the sky. By then, since leaving Yen-an Gregory’s party had covered over fifty miles, and tough as the ponies were, their flagging during the last hour was a clear indication that they should not be pressed much further.

  It was now bitterly cold and they were not carrying camp equipment with them; so he kept the ponies going at a walk while looking about for some shelter for himself and his men. Two miles further on they came to a cliff face with two shallow caves in it. They offered scant comfort but would at least keep the frost off; which, as there was no brushwood about to make a fire, was a big consideration. Having tethered their ponies, the seven of them huddled up for warmth in the deepest of the caves, and got such uneasy sleep as they could until dawn.

  An hour’s ride in the morning brought them to a monastery, where they were able to get a hot meal; but inquiries there proved disappointing, as the men they were after had not stopped at it. By one o’clock they were within sight of Tsing-pien, but Gregory now had little hope of getting news of their quarry in the town, as they had questioned several groups of travellers going south, and people in the few hamlets through which they had passed, without result. His pessimism was justified. After another meal Chou and his men ranged the bazaars for the best part of two hours, but no one they questioned had seen a man answering the description of the one they sought.

  Their reports could only mean that the fox had either gone to earth or taken the road followed by Tû-lai up to Chwan-tsing; so it was now for Gregory to get there as soon as possible. The town was between fifty and sixty miles away to the west, and as the ponies had already covered over ninety miles in less than twenty-four hours they needed at least a day’s rest before they could again be put to any
further strain.

  In consequence, with Chou as his adviser, Gregory bought six fresh ponies, and arranged that one of the men should stay behind to take those they had ridden so hard, back to Yen-an by easy stages. They also bought blankets and provisions, and at five o’clock in the evening cantered out of Tsing-pien, intent on covering as much ground as they could before halting for the night.

  From Tsing-pien they had already seen the Great Wall of China in the distance, and now their way lay alongside it. As the course it followed had been based on tactical considerations, it ran for the most part along a series of crests, undulating like a gargantuan stone serpent along them and, where they broke, dipping sharply into valleys at a new angle to rise to others.

  By far the greater part of it still stood intact, rising on average twenty feet from the ground, and broad enough on top for two cars to be driven abreast along it, between its double edge of castellated battlements. As they trotted along for mile after mile, always within rifle shot of it, its immensity was brought home to Gregory. When his journey, equivalent to a hard day’s ride, was done, he would still have seen only one-thirtieth part of it.

  Begun over two hundred years before the birth of Christ, completed by the Han dynasty and, for most of its length, splendidly reinforced with stone by the Ming Emperors, it was the greatest human endeavour ever undertaken by man. The magnificent bridge spanning Sydney harbour, the skyscrapers of New York, and even the Great Pyramid were childish efforts by comparison. Across hill and dale it ran for one and a half thousand miles; in its structure were embodied fifteen thousand watch-towers and twenty-five thousand forts. To the south of it a vast fertile land had nurtured the greatest genuine civilisation of all time; to the north of it there still lay only limitless wastes of sand and a few scattered oases, sparsely populated by nomad tribes of barbarians.