“Don’t worry about me, Edwina,” Jane said. “I’ll be all right.”
Edwina picked up her hat from the hall table.
“You weren’t expecting to come to New York surely?” Her eyes glittered as they met Jane’s through the long pier glass on the wall. “It would be too confusing,” she pointed out. “Reservations and that sort of thing. Besides, your father has everything fixed for us. He believes you’re still safely in Switzerland, climbing away happily in your mountains!”
“Yes,” Jane said bleakly, “I know.”
It was difficult for Edwina to conceal her relief.
“I thought you wouldn’t want to come,” she observed, pulling on her gloves as a taxi drew up at the gate. “Did you come back for your clothes? I left your suitcase in your room. It was ... quite distressing when it arrived like that. I never could cope with that sort of situation—unpacking the belongings of the deceased! I’m afraid I just left everything as it was, locked in your room.”
Dixon looked at Jane and she felt desperately ashamed for Edwina, but perhaps he was only thinking about the diamonds, wondering if they were in the suitcase, as he hoped they were.
“I really must be off,” Edwina decided, gathering up her sables. She treated Dixon to a devastating smile as he picked up her various pieces of hand luggage. “How kind of you! I really am quite lost without my husband. He’s such a pet! He practically carries me around!”
Jane turned sharply away. Was she merely jealous? Was that what it all amounted to, this terrible feeling that Edwina was constantly belittling her father? “He’s such a pet! He practically carries me around!” Dixon must be thinking of her father as a sort of weak-kneed lapdog, constantly eager for his wife’s carelessly dropped morsels of praise, while in reality he was kind and good and strong, a man who had risen to the top in his profession without losing the qualities of humanity and understanding for others.
Edwina raised a cool cheek for her farewell kiss.
“Look after yourself, Janey!” she said glibly. “What would you like me to bring you from New York?”
“Father, I think—safe and sound!” Jane forced a smile. “Don’t distress him too much over ... all this,” she added quickly. “I’ll write later, if you’ll let me have an address.”
Edwina whirled away in a flurry of coats and hat-boxes, and Jane stood waiting for Dixon to come back from the gate.
The taxi pulled away, Edwina waved and he walked back, following Jane into the hall.
“I’m sorry everything looks so unwelcoming,” she apologized, gazing around at the firmly closed doors. “I’ll get my suitcase. It won’t take me a minute.”
She fled up the staircase. The usual druggets had been laid along the hall and in most of the rooms, giving the house a cold look, but she tried to remind herself that she had come back unexpectedly and that Edwina had probably arranged for the decorators to come in while she was away. It was unfair to her stepmother to feel that some small effort might have been made to ensure her comfort, at least in her own room.
Unlocking her bedroom door, she found the suitcase standing where Edwina had left it in the center of the room. It was still locked and she carried it back down the stairs to where Dixon was waiting.
“I haven’t got my keys,” she said. “They must have gone with my passport and the small rucksack when I fell.”
He took the suitcase from her, laying it on the table beneath the pier glass. In the glass Jane could see the strong lines of his face, the hard set of the jaw, the firm mouth beneath the thin aquiline nose and the determined thrust of the chin as he said, “I’m afraid this is the only way. I’ll have the locks repaired for you later.” With a swift thrust of the penknife he had taken from his pocket, he forced both locks and raised the lid. Then, unexpectedly, he stood back.
“They ought to be in the plastic handbag,” he said briefly, “if my theory is correct.”
Jane’s hands were not quite steady as she fumbled with the cashmere sweaters that comprised most of her luggage and that she had never unpacked. This was the moment of truth, the moment that must lead to their final goodbye.
“It’s here,” she said at last, “just as I left it.”
The cheap little handbag lay in her hands and she stared down at it for a moment before she opened it.
Fifty thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds. Dixon had come a long way to retrieve them.
The jewels were wrapped up in a gaudy silk bandanna, the kind of scarf Adele had worn to protect her hair. There were several bracelets and a magnificent riviere of diamonds, a veritable collar of jewels, which glittered with living fire. At the bottom of the bag lay a ring set with a solitaire diamond, so blue in color that Jane took it for a sapphire.
Mutely she held them out to her companion, who examined each piece separately with an expert’s eye.
“They’re all there,” he said. “I thought perhaps they might have broken the riviere up, but they hadn’t a lot of time. Quite often they divide a haul like this right away, but Adele had to make too quick a decision when I challenged her, I suppose.”
Carefully he returned the necklace and bracelets to the bag, retaining the solitaire, which he slipped almost casually into his coat pocket.
“This belongs to me,” he explained. “I bought it in Cape Town because I couldn’t resist the color. There are very few diamonds quite as blue as that. Adele would have found it difficult to sell,” he mused dryly.
Jane gave a small shaky laugh.
“And I thought it was a sapphire!” she said.
“Your ignorance is excusable.” He smiled down at her, with something in his eyes that she had never seen before. The return of the stolen jewels meant a great deal to him, of course. He must want to get back to France immediately.
“I shall have to report these to Scotland Yard right away so that they can get into touch with the French police,” he said.
He stood looking around for several minutes without speaking. This was it, Jane thought, her heart throbbing painfully. He was going to take her hand, thank her and say goodbye. It would be all over. Her foolish little dream would be at an end. All that would be left would be the years of longing stretching endlessly ahead of her.
She had got to steel her voice so that it would not falter. Goodbye! Goodbye...
“I’m afraid we’re going to be asked quite a few questions,” he was saying. “Scotland Yard will want to see you and take a statement, of course, but the whole affair has been reported to them so it shouldn’t be too bad. I’m sorry, Jane,” he apologized, “you must be heartily sick of the whole business by now.”
“I wanted to help.” She forced a smile. “I don’t suppose I’ll be able to find anything to offer you to eat here,” she added, glancing toward the deserted kitchen. “There’s not even milk for the cat!”
“That will be the least of our worries,” he assured her, hesitating for a moment before he added, “Look, would you like to go up and get changed or something, while I nip around to the Yard with these? I shall feel a lot happier once I’ve got rid of them, I can assure you! Then I can pick you up and we can have a meal somewhere. I’ll have to take you along to the Yard later, but I’ll vouch for you at present!”
“I’ll wait for you,” Jane said, knowing that he must want to get away as quickly as possible, if only to make sure that the diamonds were in safe custody.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was seven o’clock before Dixon returned.
“I thought you’d met up with the jewel thieves again!” Jane said jocularly when she opened the door and saw him. “I seem to have been waiting for an eternity.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized. His voice sounded almost flat. “There was quite a lot to go into at the Yard. Interpol is dealing with everything now, and they’ll see the diamonds safely back through customs. It’s a tremendous relief,” he added thankfully. “I feel that I can breathe freely again. Insurance indemnity is all very well, but at least one o
f these bracelets was a woman’s most treasured possession. It was her husband’s last gift to her. He died a week afterward. Money can’t replace that sort of thing.”
“And your ring,” she said. “That, too, was invaluable.”
“I could have found another blue diamond, I dare say,” he smiled crookedly. “The ring had no actual sentimental value. My mother doesn’t like diamonds. She thinks they are too hard and unflattering. She prefers emeralds or rubies, so the ring never really had an owner.”
But Adele had taken it along with the other jewels. Jane was surprised that Dixon hadn’t given Adele the ring. She tried to remember if Adele had worn a ring at all and could not. Certainly she had taken off her wedding ring, for Jane was now convinced that it had disappeared with the cheap costume jewelry in the green morocco leather case. It had probably been found lying discarded somewhere in the scrubby garden behind the inn at Sancey-le-Haut.
Dixon put an imperative hand under her elbow, drawing her toward the door.
“Lock up and we’ll go out and eat somewhere,” he commanded. “Even if you eventually found the cat’s milk, you must still be hungry. I know I am!”
They found a quiet restaurant in Knightsbridge run by a Chinese couple who welcomed Jane as an old friend.
“I thought you didn’t like Chinese food,” Dixon remarked, looking pointedly at the large Pacific prawns she had ordered.
“I didn’t say that,” she corrected him “I often come here. What I did say was that I couldn’t be quite sure about it. I seem to ... mislead you quite a lot,” she added.
He met her eyes over the shaded light.
“You don’t succeed very well,” he said. “You never did, Jane.”
She looked down at her plate.
“It wasn’t easy for you,” she said. “When I look back and think how damning the evidence against me must have been, I can only marvel that you didn’t hand me over to the authorities at our very first encounter.”
“I didn’t want to do that,” he said slowly. “Not for any sentimental reason, mind you! I did suspect you when you first made your appearance at the villa, although it went against the grain. You see, I had to reason with myself that you might be a contact of these people, that, in fact, you very likely were. You looked like Adele and you could have been sent to pick up the diamonds from some cache or other where she had left them. I set out to trap the thieves—through you.” He gave her an odd calculating smile. “I’d met thoroughly innocent-looking crooks before, you see, and it did seem as if you had been sent back for some reason, especially when the launch made its appearance in the bay again. Even when your admirable Dr. John managed to convince me about the amnesia, I still thought the gang could be using you,” he added. “That was why I decided to keep quiet about our ‘marriage’ and accepted you at first as my wife.”
Suddenly he was looking away from her, his eyes sharp with pain, the line of his mouth hard.
“I wanted to trap you,” he said harshly, “so I allowed the farce to go on. The return of the diamonds was all I cared about, and you believed in the validity of our union. It was a bitter little deception that obviously worked.”
“You were not to blame,” Jane said, gazing down at her empty plate. “It was something you had to do.” The bitterness was still in his eyes as he watched the silent-footed waiter changing their plates. It was all so like The Silver Dragon that Jane imagined they might even hear the rhythmic wash of the Mediterranean breaking against the pebbled plage if only they listened carefully enough. Perhaps it had been a foolish thing to do to bring Dixon here, recalling so many memories for him. He must have taken Adele to The Silver Dragon many times while she was his secretary, and now he was sitting facing her with the memory of Adele in his heart. He could not be sure that Adele was dead. That was the most awful part for him. Hope must be gnawing at him. Hope and fear.
We’ll never be sure, she thought suddenly. I saw the others falling, but can I say for certain that they died up there on the edge of the glacier?
The thought nagged at her mind, making her end the evening earlier than she might have done.
“I promised John not to stay up too late,” She said with a wavering smile. “Not for a night or two.” Dixon looked almost relieved as he paid his bill and asked the Chinese doorman to hail him a taxi.
“When will you go back to the villa?” she asked in spite of herself.
He looked as if he had scarcely considered his return to France.
“I’m not quite sure. I have some business to see to in London and I’m always expected to contact my publishers when I’m here. Then I suppose I shall return to Nice, via Paris.”
They sat in silence until the taxi drew up at her door.
“I ought to have done some shopping,” she said, “but I could offer you a cup of coffee, if you can drink it black.”
“I can drink it any way,” he said, opening the door for her. “Not for nothing do I go to sea!”
In the kitchen she found coffee beans and a tin of biscuits.
“Will you grind?” She thrust the coffee mill toward him because he was standing too near for her peace of mind. “I’ll see if I can find a tin of milk.”
“By the way, Jane,” he said when the pungent smell of the ground beans had given the kitchen a more homey air, “I gave Scotland Yard this address and your telephone number. I thought if they wanted to contact either of us it might be a good idea. I also left your number with my hotel.”
He had expected her to ask him back then? And all she had to offer him was some black coffee and some shortbread her grandmother had sent down from Edinburgh at New Year!
They had to eat it in the kitchen, too, because the central heating had been turned off and it was the only really warm place.
“Are you going to be all right here by yourself?” Dixon asked. “We could still phone around for a hotel room for you, if you like.”
“I think I’d rather stay where I am,” she decided. “I like being at home...”
She faltered over the word and suddenly, to her surprise and mortification, tears gathered in her eyes. She blinked them angrily away, hoping that he had not seen, but Dixon had an eagle eye.
“Jane,” he asked gently, “what happened? About the American trip, I mean?”
“Oh ... it was nothing!” She attempted to smile at him. “I’m really terribly foolish about disappointments. Like a child, sometimes. Dad and I had always gone to Switzerland at this time of year for as long as I can remember, and everything had been arranged. Then it had to be canceled at the last minute.” She fought loyally to keep bitterness out of her voice. “Edwina wanted to go to America instead. My father was to go to New York on business after we got back from Geneva, you see, and she decided it would be too expensive and too fatiguing for him to do both.”
“Edwina wasn’t going to Switzerland?” he asked, reaching for what must have been his fourth piece of shortbread.
“Oh, no!” Jane smiled at the suggestion. “She doesn’t like mountains in any shape or form. She doesn’t even like to look at them. She won’t go to Scotland to visit Granny Pettigrew who lives in Edinburgh!”
“Which is not exactly in the heart of the mountains!” Dixon mused.
The telephone bell broke in on their conversation. “Scotland Yard!” Jane laughed, rising to answer it.
“One never knows,” Dixon agreed. “It could, of course, be Dr. Ordley from Nice to check up on the amnesia!”
“It’s for you!” she called back from the hall. “And it is Scotland Yard!” she added in a conspiratorial whisper when he came to take the call.
She was clearing away the coffee cups when he followed her into the kitchen.
“Well, are they going to send around a plain van?” she asked.
The utter frivolity of her remark hung in the air long after the words had died on her lips. She turned to look at him.
“Dixon—what happened? What did they say?”
She crosse
d to his side, the tea towel still in her hand.
“They’ve found the bodies,” he answered briefly. “All three of them. There’s an underground river of some sort that apparently often gives up its dead.”
He sat down on the edge of the table, covering his face with his hands, and Jane stood where she was, unable to offer him any comfort.
“You’ll probably have to come to the Yard with me in the morning,” he said when he straightened to his full height again.
She felt curiously sick at heart, watching him without being able to offer him any words of sympathy.
“I ... couldn’t you do without me?” she asked.
He turned, gathering her into his arms so swiftly and possessively that she could not have hoped to resist him even if she had tried.
“No, Jane,” he said, “I just couldn’t do without you!” His lips were on her hair, her eyes and finally her mouth, demanding her kisses in return. “I’ve wanted to tell you that for a very long time. All my life, perhaps! Anyway, I’ve known about it ever since that night in The Silver Dragon when I found you looking so lost and ill at ease and knew that you needed my help.”
“But you couldn’t tell me,” she said, smoothing the dark hair at the back of his head with a gentle hand. “I understand that now, Dixon. Yes, truly I understand.”
“I haven’t been able to tell you till now—when the phone rang,” he said, keeping her prisoner in his arms.
“There was always the doubt about Adele. We had no real proof that she was dead. I’m not going to tell you that I never really loved her, because that would be foolish. I was in love with what she seemed to be. That must be the answer.” He smiled, turning her face up to his. “Outwardly she was like you, Jane. You looked quite amazingly alike.” His smile deepened. “You’ve heard the saying, of course? Meet a man’s first wife and you’ve met ’em all!”
The Silver Dragon Page 17
