The Silver Dragon

by Jean S. MacLeod

  “Disgustingly replete!” She tried not to let him see her anxiety. “I really could go on, if you think that would be the best way,” she offered.

  “I don’t.” His decision was unhesitating. “Besides,” he added, “this is a holiday as far as I’m concerned. I’d like to see something of Savoie without rushing madly along the main arterial roads to the south and seeing nothing but advertisements for oil and tires!”

  “I’m willing,” she capitulated. “I’m guiltily conscious of spoiling your pleasure as it is!”

  He did not answer, and if the truth were told, she was not so desperately anxious to reach the Mediterranean now. This protracted journey was proving very pleasant, and for a mile or two she had even been able to thrust her personal problems into the background while she listened to what John called “the unexciting story of my life.”

  “I always had a yen for medicine,” he confessed, guiding the car out along the road to St. Gervais-les-Bains. “It was traditional, I suppose. Both my father and my grandfather were in the profession. The old man retired a year ago and, as I told you, went off to Canada on a protracted holiday. The professor and my old man were colleagues years ago in Geneva and so I got the invitation to study under him. It was a wonderful chance and I seized it with both hands, knowing that I ought to profit by it in the future. I haven’t made any definite plans,” he mused, keeping his eyes fixed on the dangerous windings of the road. “I suppose I considered there was plenty of time for making decisions once I got back to London. I’ve done my hospital stint and this postgraduate course, and I’m pretty interested in the respiratory diseases, so I guess I’ll probably end up at some remote little sanatorium in the country somewhere, where I can live out my days in peace!”

  “I don’t think you will,” she said, watching his strong purposeful hands on the steering wheel. “You’re much too vital to stagnate in a backwater, even though you might be doing good there. I feel sure I shall hear of you again, in some famous hospital, perhaps, covering your name with glory!”

  “You’re being much too generous,” he grinned. “But so long as you do expect to hear, I won’t quarrel with your forecast.” Suddenly he took one hand from the wheel to lay it over hers. “I don’t think we’re going to say goodbye when we reach Cap Ferrat,” he added decisively.

  She couldn’t find anything to say to that. All her uncertainty, all the inexplicable doubts that had beset her from the beginning came back to torment her so that even the breathtaking beauty of the Haute Savoie was lost to her. The high mountains with their sparkling snow-encrusted crests were once more the sinister trap for her memory, and she could not look on their sun-kissed faces without fear.

  Her tiredness began to show long before they had reached Briancon. For the past half hour John Ordley had watched the rearview mirror under cover of their conversation, and what he saw made him turn the car off the main highway into a secondary road that wandered back into the mountains.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked, looking through the mirror at the small car that had turned in their tracks but now seemed to be hesitating about passing them. “You ... don’t think we’re being followed, do you?”

  He laughed abruptly.

  “Hardly!”

  His tone did not quite hold conviction, and the car behind them slackened speed when they did.

  “Do you think he wants to pass?” Adele asked.

  “I’m not sure.” John was frowning now. “He’ll have to make up his mind before he’s much older if he does,” he added. “We appear to be in for a fairly stiff climb and I’m not going to let him pass me on any of those devilish little hairpin bends one comes across in the Alps!”

  “Has he been behind us for long?”

  “About twenty miles or so, but I think I saw the car at Chamonix. It could be coincidence, of course,” he added lightly. “There are plenty of these little Dauphines on the road. Grand little cars they are. Full of pep! He’ll probably show us his dust on the next straight.”

  The Dauphine, however, stayed behind, following them at a respectful distance until they reached Sancey-le-Bas. It was a remote little place lying on the floor of a narrow valley, with a snow-fed river flowing through it, and the soundlessness of high places wrapping it around.

  John did not seem impressed. With a quick glance through his driving mirror, he said, “We’ll push on and see what we feel about Sancey-le-Haut, shall we? There’s sure to be an inn of sorts there, and if we’re going to have mountain air we may as well have cowbells and all the rest of it!”

  Adele knew that he was trying to shake off the green Dauphine, but she did not question him. The chill of the unknown had clamped down on her again and all she wanted to do was to leave Sancey-le-Bas and the Dauphine behind.

  Slowly they wound up the mountain road, leaving the trees and the valley far beneath them. High above the road the peaks were white with snow and blue in the crevices where the ice lay.

  “It’s like Bourg-St. Pierre,” Adele said in a stifled whisper. “Only the snow has gone from the valley.”

  “All these Alpine villages look much the same,” he answered almost curtly. “Don’t think about the past if it distresses you so much.”

  “No, I won’t. I’m sorry,” she apologized.

  She looked back for the Dauphine, but the road behind them was deserted. The occupant of the other car had obviously decided to remain in Sancey-le-Bas.

  The inn at Sancey-le-Haut was unpretentious, but like all French establishments, it was scrupulously clean and the food was excellent. When they had satisfied appetites sharpened by the keen mountain air, they were both quite ready to turn in for the night.

  “All the same,” John decided, “we ought to walk off some of this food. Come on, we’ll walk up to the waterfall and back. It can’t be much more than a kilometer, and we need the exercise.”

  It was dark when they went out, but the whole world was full of stars. They glittered like tiny elfin lanterns above the peaks, piercingly bright against the dark blue of the heavens, so that they had no difficulty in finding their way.

  They had seen the waterfall from the road leading up to the village and they could hear it in the silence of the night as they approached. It was a magic moment, and Adele was not surprised when John took her hand and drew it through his arm.

  “We’ll never find a place like this again, not in a thousand years!” he declared enthusiastically, drawing deep breaths of the keen air as they gazed down into the gorge at their feet. “I’m glad we didn’t go on to Briancon after all.”

  “It’s a lost enchanted valley,” Adele said above the sound of the falling water. “A place where anything might happen.”

  He turned abruptly toward the village.

  “You’re tired,” he said. “Shall we go back?”

  They drank a nightcap in the small parlor of the inn, which had the dank smell of all unused places. The fire afforded them little warmth, and Adele walked around, examining the cheap lithographs on the wooden walls.

  “Do you think we’re going to find anything when we reach Cap Ferrat?” she asked suddenly. “Anything about me?”

  He put down his glass and came toward her. “You’re not to worry,” he said, taking her by the shoulders in the way that had become familiar to her now. “Leave that to me. I have so few worries of my own!”

  She smiled, walking with him to the door.

  “I’m going to sleep tonight as soon as my head touches the pillow,” she said, trying to sound convincing. “No pills or sedatives! I’m just healthily tired.” He waited until she had reached the door of her room.

  “Good night, Adele,” he called to her. “Pleasant dreams!”

  She opened her bedroom door, switching on the light, and the muffled cry she gave brought him swiftly up the narrow staircase to her side.

  “Someone’s been here,” she cried breathlessly. “They’ve turned everything upside down.”

  The presence of an intruder
was evident. Drawers had been opened and her suitcase searched. John closed the door behind them.

  “Before we start making a fuss,” he advised, “let’s find out exactly what’s missing.”

  The restraint in his voice calmed her.

  “I’m not sure that I can check everything accurately,” she said, “but I’ll try.” She crossed to the wardrobe. “I didn’t unpack because we were only going to stay for one night, so the drawers were empty, and there’s only my coat and scarf in here.”

  He came across and closed the wardrobe door. In the narrow mirror on the outside panel they saw themselves reflected for a moment before they turned to the suitcase lying on the slatted wooden luggage stool at the foot of the bed. The clothes it had contained were tossed out onto the huge feather duvet and into the lid of the case itself, but nothing appeared to be missing.

  Adele’s hands shook as she lifted the last woolen sweater from the floor.

  “It’s absolutely bewildering,” she said unhappily. “There was the money the professor lent me. They haven’t even touched that.”

  “I don’t think they were looking for money,” John said slowly. “I think it was something else.”

  “What? What could they have been searching for?”

  “I don’t know.” He turned to the door. “I’ll see what they have to say downstairs,” he added as he went out, “but it’s going to be difficult, especially when there’s nothing missing. Try to get some sleep.”

  She slept fitfully, waking every now and then to turn restlessly on her pillows, sure that the room had been entered again, although she had barred the door securely.

  In the morning John told her that he wanted to get off to a good start.

  “We’ve got a fair way to go, and I don’t think we’re going to be too popular here, having virtually accused the host of breaking and entering while we were out last night!”

  Adele flushed scarlet.

  “John, you don’t think I could have done it?” she asked nervously. “Without knowing, I mean? Tossed the things around and ... searched the drawers, looking for something I imagined I might find?”

  He shook his head.

  “You would know if you had done that,” he assured her. “No, Adele, you are absolutely normal in every way—except for the fact that the past has been completely wiped from your mind.”

  She sighed, allowing him to help her on with her coat. The car was waiting at the door.

  “I’m making it all very difficult for you,” she apologized. “I don’t really know why you bother about me.”

  “I’ve told you that you’re an interesting case,” he said doggedly. “That will have to be explanation enough for the present.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, I suppose it will.”

  They drove for the remainder of the way without mentioning the incident at the inn again. If John connected it with the car that had followed them the day before, he did not say so. It was evident that he wished to spare her any extra emotional strain, and therefore she did not press him with questions. But now she recoiled from thoughts of the past, feeling that she did not want to remember.

  Sunshine, sea, firs and fragrant pines lay ahead of them as they crossed the last Alpine barrier to the south and dropped down to the Lower Comiche road toward Villefranche. The Mediterranean was hazily blue as they made their way out along the narrow road to the peninsula, and then, as if it had swung suddenly out to bar their progress, they came on the swinging sign that said Les Rochers Blanches.

  A driveway, half-hidden in cypresses and firs, wound up onto a headland like the prow of a ship, and far ahead of them they could see the white line of a harbor and a small fishing village cradled in the rocks behind it.

  John put the car into second gear, but soon they had ceased to climb and were dropping down again toward the sea. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly almost, a white house stood before them.

  It was closed. The shuttered windows stared back at them like blank uncaring eyes.

  “What now?”

  Adele’s question seemed to echo and reecho among the waiting pines as John got out from behind the wheel and gazed up at the house, equally disconcerted.

  “We should have expected this,” he said. “We were more or less prepared to find it unoccupied.”

  “But not so closed up and ... unfriendly as this.” Bitter disappointment pounded at Adele’s heart. “No one has been here for ages and ages—all winter, perhaps.”

  He would not allow her to make such a sweeping statement.

  “Houses that have been closed, even for a week, always have the same forsaken look,” he pointed out. “Especially if the windows are shuttered. They’re like a sort of barricade, shutting out even the sun.”

  He was still surveying the white imposing facade of the villa, taking in the fact that it probably boasted six or seven bedrooms on the first floor and three or four large public rooms with French windows leading onto the terrace, which overlooked the sea.

  Overhung would have been the better word to use, he reflected, as he noticed how steeply the ground fell away from the last of the terrace steps, leading in tier after tier to the bay below.

  The bay itself was a small secret place lying between two tremendous jagged rock promontories, which all but met, leaving the narrowest of sea passages between them. At this late hour of the afternoon the sun had deserted most of it, and the deep shadow of the rocks lay across the water, making it look black in comparison with the sun-flecked Mediterranean beyond.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in knocking, or even trying to get in,” he said, coming back from the terrace edge. Then, suddenly, he was looking straight at her. “Has it suggested anything to you yet?” he asked.

  “No.” Her voice faltered. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”

  Without laboring the point, he led her back to the car, but suddenly she knew that she could not expect him to stay with her any longer. He must want to press on to Italy to begin his holiday in earnest. She had relied on him all the way from Switzerland, taking advantage of his kindness and understanding, to say nothing of his professional skill, but now she had to stand on her own feet. He had told her often enough that she was perfectly normal, apart from the amnesia. She had to let him go.

  “I must take over from here, John,” she said. “You didn’t bargain for this, and I can always report to the local hospital if I keep drawing a blank, or go to the police. I have to report to them anyway.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense!” he cut her short. “How do you think I’m going to feel if I walk off and leave you standing here, or even see you safely into a hotel in Nice? I’m not going to be able to ‘enjoy’ my holiday in any case, since that seems to be what’s worrying you most, so I would much rather suffer in a good cause!”

  “You always make light of it,” she said, turning away, “but I know how irksome it must be. Please, John, do as I say. Take me in to Nice, if you like, and see me settled in a pension or somewhere suitable, and tomorrow I shall go to the police or the hospital.”

  He came around to her side.

  “Look, Adele,” he said, “I thought we had all this out before. I’m staying put, at least till I know what’s to become of you. Wild horses won’t drive me from that decision, so you needn’t try. Get into the car like a good sensible girl, and we’ll drive along to Nice. I’ll make some inquiries there and we’ll come back here in the morning, if there’s any point in coming back at all.” It was useless to argue, so obediently she got into the car and he drove away. The house seemed to watch them coldly until they were lost to sight among the pines.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “What did you do last night after you convinced me that I should go to bed with a couple of sleeping pills?” Adele asked when they met on the bright sun-warmed terrace of the hotel the following morning.

  “You didn’t take the pills,” he accused her without answering her question. “I found them on your table when I
looked in to see if they had had the desired effect.”

  “I managed without them,” she said. “I suppose ... I don’t really believe in that sort of thing,” she added slowly.

  “They have their uses.”

  He rang for fresh coffee and sat down beside her as she gazed across the deserted promenade to the sparkling blue sea. It was too early yet for the flow of pedestrians and only the odd tricycle pedaled by a tradesman or a hurrying delivery van made their way along the wide expanse of the intervening road.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” she pointed out.

  “I was waiting till my coffee arrived.”

  “Why?” Her gray eyes flew to his. “Have you discovered something? Is it ... bad news?”

  “One question at a time! I have no bad news for you and I haven’t discovered very much.” The waiter came and he watched Adele pouring his coffee, her hands not quite steady as she willed him to continue. “All I have been able to find out is that Les Rochers Blanches once belonged to Sophia Campanelli, the Italian prima donna, but that quite recently it passed into the hands of an Englishman. That doesn’t get us very far,” he admitted, “but it does prove that someone has an interest in the place and that it’s not lying empty.”

  The color had risen in her cheeks fpr a moment, but now it faded.

  “An Englishman?” she repeated. “But doesn’t that suggest a holiday villa—a very wealthy man who might spend only a few short weeks on the Mediterranean, preferably in winter to escape the English fog?”

  “Agreed,” he conceded. “On the other hand, your wealthy Englishman might be lucky enough to be able to live at Les Rochers Blanches most of the year, spending the odd few weeks in England when it is absolutely necessary.”