Read Online Down the Garden Path by Dorothy Cannell - Free Book Online

can help you, I ...”
    “Would what? Recommend the direct approach? Harry, you don’t listen. I have been describing two women past sixty, living in a fantasy realm where the most daring intimation of sex is a bare ankle. Let us suppose that twenty years ago a member of their family or household had a child, and all was hushed up. Would they glibly spill the beans at the first ‘Hello—does the name Tessa Fields ring a bell?’ No. Of course they wouldn’t—but perhaps if they were to get to know me ...”
    “That shouldn’t be too difficult,” said Harry thoughtfully, and I felt a little spurt of hope. Despite himself, he was becoming interested.
    “Well, it wouldn’t be difficult to get to know them casually, I am sure. One can always manage something of that sort. But that wouldn’t be enough. I would need time. Quite a bit of time in which to break down their defences. And the only way to achieve that would be to somehow wheedle a visit to their house.”
    “Afternoon tea?”
    “Oh, no.” Absently I stuck a pin back in my hair. “I am sure I would need to remain for at least a week. And that is where you come in, Harry. In the guise of a modern highwayman.”
    “What?” He picked up the cider bottle and studied the label. “Maybe this has a higher alcohol content than stated.”
    I waved him back to the table. “Come and sit down—this isn’t as drastic a measure as it sounds. I’m not asking you to rob the old ladies. All I need is for you to stage a heinous attack upon my person—causing such palpitations and attacks of the vapours (very much the in thing in Regencies) that I will suffer a nasty bout of amnesia—to be witnessed by one or both of them. That part I haven’t quite worked out ... fixing them on the scene, I mean ... but I’m sure between us we can solve that small problem. Now what else should I tell you?”
    I couldn’t read the look in his intensely blue eyes and decided it was probably just as well. A strand of hair had fallen over my left eyebrow and I blew it away. “Let’s see ... the ladies’ name is Tramwell. They live in this vast house called Cloisters. And, really, I don’t anticipate any trouble at all in luring them into offering me hospitality until I simultaneously recover my memory and uncover my origins.”
    Harry did not sit down with me. He shook his head with disbelief. “Of all the outrageous, arrogant schemes. To assume that because these women are old they are also completely senile. I almost think it would serve you right if I let you go through with it—and spend a week in an atmosphere of mothballs and woodworm.” He thrust his hands deep in his pockets, and looked at me. “In plotting this little drama, didn’t you give any thought to the police being brought in to investigate? And do you seriously suppose you would escape a thorough medical before being carted off to the padded cell?”
    I should have known! Hadn’t he failed me before when I desperately needed him? Rising, I thrust my chair back with a wonderful grating sound, and made an ostentatious display of looking round for my bag.
    “You didn’t bring one.”
    “Huh! I should have remembered what a spoilsport you are, Harry Harkness.” Stalking across to the kitchen door I flung it open, stood glaring at it for a moment, swung it backwards and forwards biting down on my lip, and waited. Wasn’t he going to say anything?
    “Goodbye,” I said with awful finality.
    “Tessa, nobody wants you to be happy more than I. Whatever has happened between us, you are still the most important person in the world to me. But ...” As a declaration of affection it was spoken in a strangely flat tone. And that was what touched me, what forced me to blink back the tears. He wasn’t hiding behind flippancy anymore. Turning, I ran to him, twining my arms around his neck and burying my face against the comfort of his rough shirt. His fingers moved slowly, gently, through my hair shaking out a