“This way,” she said to Dunn, and walked on along a path that led to the back of the house. Once she stopped and looked back. She smiled slightly and disdainfully as she did so, and Dunn saw that she was looking at a clump of small bushes near where they had been standing.
He guessed at once that she believed Deede Dawson to be behind those bushes watching them, and when she glanced at him he understood that she wished him to know it also.
He said nothing, though a faint movement visible in the bushes convinced him that her suspicions, if, indeed, she had them, were well-founded, and they walked on in silence, Ella a little ahead, and Dunn a step or two behind.
The garden was a large one, and had at one time been well cultivated, but now it was neglected and overgrown. It struck Dunn that if he was to be the gardener here he would certainly not find himself short of work, and Ella, without looking round, said to him over her shoulder:
“Do you know anything about gardening?”
“A little, miss,” he answered.
“You needn't call me 'miss,'” she observed. “When a man has tied a girl to a chair I think he may regard himself as on terms of some familiarity with her.”
“What must I call you?” he asked, and his words bore to himself a double meaning, for, indeed, what name was it by which he ought to call her?
But she seemed to notice nothing as she answered “My name is Cayley —Ella Cayley. You can call me Miss Cayley. Do you know anything of motoring?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Though I never cared much for motoring at night.”