The Silver Dragon (11 page)

A strange emotion was struggling for expression in Adele. It was linked up with Olivia Cabot’s extreme possessiveness, but she could not trace it to its source because that source lay somewhere in the past. She could not even
a
rgue against Olivia’s claim to possess Dixon, body and soul, because she felt that Olivia was already suspicious of their relationship.

In the two days that followed, therefore, she was not at all surprised to find Olivia constantly by her side, shadowing her every movement.

It was easy enough for Olivia to do this, because Dixon chose to shut himself up in his study with his work and they were thrown together constantly in consequence. He closed his study door on them both, and with a sudden flash of humor Adele told herself that she did not blame him. Poor man! He had his work cut out for him if he was trying to please two women at the same time!

Gradually Olivia discovered that they had no marital relationship at all and, insanely
glad of the fact, she leaned back in her chair in triumph to ask herself why.

At dusk on the second day Adele could not stand this cat-and-mouse atmosphere any longer and set out to walk back along the peninsula. Dixon had gone to Monte Carlo and she had been alone in the villa with Olivia since lunchtime.

She changed her mind, however, when she came to the road and took what she called “John’s path” through the shrubbery to the bay. It was twisting and overgrown with creepers, but she managed to push her way along it, crunching onto the pebbles of the beach at last with a sense of achievement that made her smile to herself.

Down here on the shore, close to the sea, she felt at peace. The tension of the past few hours slipped from her and she began to sing as she walked along.

‘If I might only come to you from all the world apart;

If I might only lay my dreams against your tender heart;

I wonder would you pity me, or would you bid me go

If I should dare to ask your love because I love you so
...
’

Her foolish little song ebbed into the silence. Why had she chosen it? What had made her sing it, here besicle the sea?

“ ‘I wonder would you pity me, or would you bid me go ...’ ” The words faltered on her lips and there was a mist of tears before her eyes as she raised them to the distant entrance to the bay. The night sky was filling up with stars high above her head, but toward the west it was still quite light. The whole bay had a silvery cast, with dark shadows crouching at the base of the cliffs and a deep stillness wrapped around it.

She heard the engine of the incoming launch long before she saw it, but when it took shape and came slowly and cautiously toward the beach she thought she recognized it as the same craft she had seen on the night Dixon had accused her of pretending about the Morse code.

The launch came nearer to tie up eventually at the wooden wharf sleeping with its feet in the sea. She had never seen it in use before.

With her heart beating a wild tattoo against her ribs she waited, and presently a small dark-clad figure came up out of the engine well and stepped ashore.

To her utter surprise and distress she recognized the man immediately. It was the untidy little Frenchman who had followed her in the flower market at Nice two days ago. In his hand he carried a withered spray of mimosa.

He came toward her across the beach, his feet in the shabby deck shoes he wore making hardly any noise.

“You didn’t come,” he said, “after all.”

His voice was low and menacing, but it was also a surprisingly cultured voice. The fact puzzled her because it was difficult to connect it with his shabby outward appearance and the shifty black eyes.

“No,” she said, drawing a shaky breath. “I don’t understand.”

“Come off it!” he said. “You know what I mean. You know perfectly well.” He held out his hand. “What have you done with the stuff?”

She recoiled, fearful in case he would touch her.

“I have nothing for you,” she protested. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, or why you’re here.”

He took a step nearer, peering at her in the uncertain light.

‘This is no time for bluffing,” he said, his harsh accent grating in that tranquil place. “You know you were to bring them here. Nice is getting too hot for us. The
gendarmerie
is swarming all over the place.”

He was not altogether an uneducated type, she realized, and he had an air of bravado about him that she found strangely pathetic. Three fingers of his left hand were missing, she noticed, and in spite of his swashbuckling manner and the knife in his belt, he looked afraid.

She wondered if she should appeal to him and tell him the truth. Tell him that her memory had deserted her. She was on the point of making her confession when he said, “I’m new on this run, but you sent out the right signal.” He caught her arm, hurting her, and she shuddered at the sight of his mutilated hand. “Don’t try to fool around with me,” he warned. “You sent the signal, now hand over the stuff. I haven’t time to monkey around with a woman!”

They stared at each other in silence, and then, suddenly, a car’s powerful headlights swept across the bay as it turned from the headland road and came steadily toward the villa.

“Damn you!” her companion cried, glaring at her in the vivid light. “It’s a trap!” He twisted her arm. “Who are you? You’re living here—up at the house?”

She could see that he was afraid.

“Yes,” she whispered, “but
...
”

“Then you’ve made a nice hash of things, haven’t you?” he snarled, glaring up at the advancing lights. “There’s someone coming.” He set her free with an angry oath. “Hand over the stuff quickly and clear out.”

“I haven’t got anything, truly I haven’t,” she protested as the searching headlights went out and the terrace above them was plunged into darkness. “I don’t know what you expected me to bring
...
”

“You’re stalling!” he hissed. “You know well enough.” Savagely he thrust her aside as he strode back to the wharf. “Well, get rid of them now the best way you can,” he advised. “If they bu
rn
your fingers, then be damned to you. We should have known better than to trust a woman!”

At the water’s edge he turned. He was no more than a dark silhouette now, outlined against the pewter gray of the sea.

“I’ll
give you one more chance,” he offered. “The Silver Dragon, tomorrow at six.”

Jumping into the launch, he started the engine, careless now about the sound in the urgency of retreat. The car had come to a standstill on the terrace above them and the noise of the engine as the launch streaked toward the pale gap between the headlands tore the silence into shreds.

Adele stood quite still. The events of these past few minutes had stunned her into immobility and her eyes seemed glued to the white wake fanning out behind the speeding boat. She caught a brief glimpse of the launch itself as it passed between the headlands into the wider reaches of the Mediterranean, with the sound of its engine growing fainter and fainter until she was left with nothing but the darkness and the silence of the bay.

When she walked toward the terrace path the crunch of the pebbles beneath her feet seemed magnified a thousandfold and her heart beat a wild tattoo against her ribs. Someone was waiting for her up there at the terrace edge.

She saw the brief glow of a cigarette and the little circle of light it described as it was tossed aside. Angrily? Contemptuously? Alertly?

Whoever it was, they had come in the car. She saw its black bulk against the pale stucco of the villa wall as she climbed the final incline, but there was no sign of anyone on the terrace when she reached it. On the gray paving flags the tip of a half-smoked cigarette still glowed beneath the shadow of an overhanging shrub.

She stood staring down at it for a long moment before she turned toward the house.

The lights were full on in Dixon’s study and in the drawing room on the other side of the hall. The car she recognized as the taxi Dixon had used before.

Slowly she crossed to the open front door. The hall lights had not been switched on and a tall shadowy figure stood there, waiting.

She knew that it was Olivia, and a quick rush of anger rose in her as she switched on the lights. Steadily she met the older woman’s eyes.

“You chose an odd time to go out for a walk, Adele,” Olivia commented, her eyes hard with suspicion. “What can you find to do down on the shore in the dark?”

“It wasn’t dark when I set out,” Adele defended herself, “and I didn’t mean to walk quite so far. I intended to keep to the main road and perhaps walk as far as St. Jean and back, but I turned along the garden road instead.”

“And came to the bay?” Olivia looked interested. “I thought I heard the sound of a launch,” she said.

The complete unexpectedness of the remark caught Adele unawares. She did not know what to say.

“Don’t tell me your doctor friend has taken to paying you clandestine visits by sea!” Olivia’s tone was stinging, her green eyes triumphant. “Or have you another lover that my son doesn’t know about?”

By this time Adele was quivering with rage.

“How dare you say such a thing!” she cried. “I wouldn’t betray Dixon in such a way.”

Olivia’s smile was thin.

“But you would betray him
...
for some other reason?” she suggested.

“That isn’t true!” There was a hint of panic in Adele’s voice now. “I don’t know what may have happened before my accident, but I do know that I would do nothing to ... to dishonor him now.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Olivia. “The past. It seems to trouble you a great deal. Perhaps the amnesia was the easiest way out.”

“I don’t know how you can say a thing like that.” Adele was reduced almost to tears. “If I knew about the past it would be easier for me and easier for Dixon, perhaps.”

“Indeed,” Olivia agreed acidly, “it might be easier for Dixon. A man can’t very well abandon his responsibilities in the circumstances, can he?”

If it was meant as a leading question, Adele refused to respond to it She was sorry now that she had lost her temper, but it had certainly let her see exactly where she stood with Olivia. They were enemies.

The thought distressed her because once again she was obsessed by the conviction that its roots lay deep in the past, but she supposed that they could not have gone on pretending much longer.

She turned away, glancing toward the study door, but it remained firmly closed against all intrusion.

Olivia was still standing in the hall where she had left her when she reached the top of the staircase. She was not looking up, but Adele had the strange impression that she was aware of her every movement.

Shaken, she reached her own room and closed the door behind her, leaning back against it as if she had been running a long way and had need to draw breath. Her heart was pounding unevenly and she had to bite her teeth into her lower lip to stop it from trembling.

What had really happened down there in the bay? Was this her life—some sort of dishonesty or treachery that would injure Dixon if it were discovered? Was this why he hated her—why their marriage had foundered?

Walking to the window, she looked out at the starry night. There was nothing but distrust and suspicion between them. She had to face that, and the awful thing was that he must have loved her at one time. He must have held her in his arms and kissed her, and she could have remained in the shelter of his embrace for the rest of her life if it had not been for the launch and the bay and the shabby little Frenchman and this dreadful thing in which she was so deeply involved.

What had she done to forfeit Dixon’s love? For, heaven help her, she was in love with him!

She must have known it long ago, almost from the beginning, she decided, listening as the taxi started up and drove away. When they had faced each other that first time and he had walked in out of the shadowy night a spark had been struck that had finally set her heart on fire. Had it been like that before? Had she loved him and forgotten and come to love him all over again?

Love could be so strong. Perhaps even amnesia could not wholly blot it out.

Thinking far into the night, she tried to remind herself that she knew nothing of his background here in the south of France. He had not come into the open to explain anything to her, but that could be because he did not trust her.

Toward one o’clock she heard him return and the car drive away again. Where had he been? What had he gone to do? Had he been trying to trace the launch and its shabby occupant? Was he, perhaps, part of this doubtful, furtive setup himself?

The questions flew around in her tired brain in an endless circle until she was almost too exhausted to think at all, and then she heard his heavy tread come along the corridor past her door and into the room adjoining her own.