The Silver Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 be low.
    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