Quest for Alexis Page 8

“Except myself. No, Brett, I’ve got to go on now that I’ve come this far.”

  “Time was,” he said bitterly, “when you’d have listened to me.”

  Time was when I had loved him. When he could do no wrong in my eyes—except to find another woman more attractive than me.

  Brett must have seen the color creeping to my cheeks. With a little dismissive shrug, he muttered something under his breath. I wished I could ask him what it was he’d said, but I didn’t want to show him I was curious.

  After we’d had coffee in the salon, I went back upstairs to put through a call to Rudi. This time the connections were made quickly. Rudi answered at once, as if he’d been waiting right beside the telephone.

  “What’s happening, Gail?”

  “We’ve come to Nice. There’s no doubt Alexis is heading here. Any time now we expect to get news of his arrival, and then I hope to see him. Rudi, how is Madeleine?”

  “She’s been in low spirits today. It would be better if you were here with her, Gail.”

  “She doesn’t know anything, does she?” I asked in sudden panic. “You haven’t told her?”

  “No, she knows nothing yet. But how much longer can we hope to keep her in the dark? Give up and come home, Gail, and you and I will break it to Madeleine together.”

  I fingered the pale-blue damask of the bedspread, feeling painfully torn and undecided about what to do for the best.

  “Rudi, I know how difficult it is for you, but please try and hold on just a little longer, just another day or so. You want to have this horrible business cleared up, don’t you, as much as I do?”

  “Of course I do, Gail!. But we’ve got to think of Madeleine.”

  “I think of her all the time, Rudi,” I said. “Give her my love, won’t you? And look after her for me.”

  I went straight to bed. After the long hours of tension my body was greedy for sleep, and I dropped off almost at once.

  It wasn’t restful sleep, though. My mind was like a kaleidoscope full of changing patterns of faces. Alexis, looking directly at me but his eyes not quite meeting mine. Belle, her long copper-colored hair shaken loose and free, the sexily provocative Belle of the newspaper picture. Madeleine, pale and fragile, holding out her arms to me beseechingly and uttering a thin plaintive cry that I couldn’t quite catch. And Rudi, his dark eyes concerned for me, a little anxious about the wisdom of what I was doing. Then Brett and Elspeth Vane, together in a close embrace, and Elspeth smiling at me over Brett’s shoulder in supercilious triumph.

  In my sleep, in my dreams, I began to shed bitter, hopeless tears.

  I heard Brett calling my name, sharply, without gentleness. I felt him shaking me.

  “Come on, Gail! Wake up. You’re out like a log!”

  My eyes flew open and I blinked, dazzled by the light of the bedside lamp. Brett was bending over me. He was fully dressed, carrying his sheepskin jacket.

  “Your door was unlocked, so I came straight in. I’ve just had a call from Dougal.” He broke off, peering at me closely. “Gail, you’ve been crying.”

  Impatiently, I brushed my tears away. “What’s happened? Have they landed? Did Dougal tell you where... ?”

  Brett nodded. “We’re dead lucky—luckier than Dougal himself. They’ve turned up right here in Nice. La Golondrina berthed about a half hour ago, and Alexis and Belle have checked in at the Hotel des Alpes-Maritimes.”

  I was suddenly gripped with nervous excitement. I threw back the bed covers and swung my legs out. “What time is it?”

  “About six A.M., so you’d better put something warm on. It’ll be chilly out.”

  I went over to the washbasin for a hasty splash, expecting Brett to leave me alone. But he didn’t move, and I was aware of his eyes watching me. I suddenly became self-conscious in my wispy nylon pajamas.

  “I’ll only be a minute,” I said tersely. “If you’ll just____”

  “Wait outside?” Brett gave an amused shrug. “Okay, if you say so.”

  Hurriedly, I pulled on slacks and a white sweater. I flicked a comb through my hair and grabbed up my coat and handbag.

  Brett was right outside the door. “That was quick. But then you never did hang about getting yourself ready, I remember. It was something I always—”

  I chopped him off abruptly. “Where is this Hotel des Alpes-Maritimes?”

  “It’s one of those enormous places along the Promenade des Anglais. Those two certainly like living it up.”

  The garage of our hotel was at the rear of the building. It was by no means full, but to my dismay we found a big black Citroen parked so that it blocked the exit of our hired Renault.

  “Damn,” exclaimed Brett. “We’ll have to shift this brute before we can get out.”

  I was in a fever to be moving. “Hadn’t we better forget about the car and walk, Brett?”

  “No, it’s quite a distance. This shouldn’t take a moment.” Brett went around the Citroen, trying each of the door handles in turn. They were all locked.

  “I don’t mind walking,” I persisted. “Or perhaps we can find a taxi.”

  “No, you wait here a minute, and I’ll go and fetch the night porter. He’ll be able to help.”

  It seemed an eternity that Brett left me there in the semi-darkness of the garage, lit by just one light at the far end. I was so on edge that my eyes started imagining menacing shapes in the gloomy recesses, and I shivered. This was the final moment of my quest. In a matter of minutes I would know the truth about Alexis. I would discover once and for all what sort of man my uncle really was.

  At last I heard the echoing sound of footsteps. More lights were turned on, and Brett appeared with a short, tubby little man who wore steel-rimmed glasses.

  Tutting to himself, the porter repeated Brett’s tour of the Citroen door handles, refusing to take our word that they were all locked. When convinced, he produced an enormous bunch of keys and started trying them each in turn, methodically.

  He could not understand it, he muttered. The gentleman who owned this car always parked it over there in the corner. Not here. And anyway, he never locked it. But perhaps last night he was a little ...

  Maddened by the man’s slowness, I had to watch while he inserted one key after another. He must have tried at least twenty-five before the lock gave a click. He turned to us and beamed as he opened the door.

  “Voila.”

  With the handbrake off, the two men started to push the big, heavy car clear of ours. I threw in my own weight to hurry things along. Then Brett fished in his pocket for a tip.

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “For heaven’s sake.”

  “A few seconds isn’t going to make any difference,” Brett reproved me.

  At this hour of the morning it was still dark, and the streets were almost deserted. In only a few moments we were driving along the broad Promenade des Anglais, with the long curving line of street lamps tracing the huge sweep of the bay, mile after mile of tropical palms and luxuriant flower beds.

  The Hotel des Alpes-Maritimes had a colonnade of white pillars the entire length of its facade. Of the hundreds upon hundreds of windows, most were in darkness.

  Brett swung into the forecourt and found a place to park.

  We pushed through glass revolving doors into a vast shadowed entrance hall that was like a Byzantine palace of marble and mosaic under a lofty vaulted ceiling. In the pool of bright light around the reception desk a group of men were talking excitedly among themselves.

  Brett took one look at them and halted. “Damn. They’ve beaten us to it, Gail.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re newspapermen, that’s what.”

  “Oh no,” I cried in dismay. “But how could they know? And so quickly.” Dougal had seemed confident that no one else knew about Alexis’s plans.

  “These chaps have an uncanny instinct when there’s a good story,” said Brett. “Come on, we’ll just have to bluff it out.”

  Seizing my hand, he th
rust his way through the bunch of reporters to the desk, pulling me after him. He addressed the concierge in a brisk, commanding voice.

  “The number of Dr. Karel’s room, please. Dr. Alexis Karel.”

  “I regret, monsieur, but you must wait with the others.”

  The man was enjoying to the hilt his brief moment of power. “Dr. Karel has agreed to receive the press in half an hour.”

  “Oh, but we’re not reporters,” I said impulsively. “We want to see Dr. Karel on a private matter.”

  The hush that fell upon the group of newsmen was something tangible. Six pairs of eyes all turned to stare at me. Dimly, I heard the concierge’s impatient voice. “Dr. Karel will see no one until he is ready, madame. Those are his precise instructions. He is angry at being hounded by newspapers in this way.”

  Someone took a step toward me, a middle-aged gray-haired man who looked as if he’d dressed in as great a hurry as I had.

  “Hey, miss, what d’you want to see Alexis Karel about?”

  “The same as you,” said Brett quickly before I could speak. “You know how it is—we thought it was worth a try.”

  “That’s Brett Warrender,” someone muttered, and another voice asked, “Who’s the bird with him?”

  “Hands off her,” said Brett lightly. “She belongs to me.”

  A whisper came from the back of the group and caught me like a whiplash. My name.

  It was picked up at once. “Gail Fleming? Say, isn’t that Karel’s niece?”

  There was a blinding blue-white flash and then another. I heard the click of camera shutters and held up my hands to shield my face. The reporters pressed around me purposefully.

  “Miss Fleming, maybe you can tell us ...”

  I was saved by a sudden commotion from somewhere behind them. A new voice called out excitedly, “What do you know—Karel’s skipped out again. I just got it from the floor waiter. Him and that doll he’s with —checked out, bags and all, five minutes ago.”

  Chapter Nine

  Brett and I were suddenly left alone near the reception desk as the reporters surged away toward the newcomer, arguing noisily among themselves.

  I felt the hard grip of Brett’s fingers on my wrist. “Come on, Gail—now’s our chance.” He waved a banknote at the bewildered concierge. “Quick, get us out of here without that lot knowing.”

  The man caught on fast. In a couple of seconds we were being shepherded through the private office and out of a door at the rear into a long, dimly lit corridor.

  Brett slid out a second banknote and held it up between his finger and thumb.

  “Do you know where Dr. Karel is heading? Where he’s gone?”

  “Monsieur, I know nothing. My instructions were exactly as I told you. All arrangements must have been made with the manager personally. Perhaps he could—”

  “There’s no time for that,” said Brett. “We’ve got to get out of here before they catch on that we’ve gone.”

  We emerged into a dark courtyard. Brett was still gripping me by the wrist.

  “It must be this way around to the front,” he muttered. “I hope to God those press boys won’t have come out yet.”

  We were in luck. When we reached the forecourt, we were within a few yards of where the Renault was parked. There were no reporters in sight. We made a quick dash to the car and were away in a moment, swinging out onto the promenade, heading back the way we had come.

  Brett said grimly, “I don’t think anyone saw us. Have a look and see if any car tried to follow.”

  I craned my neck to peer out of the rear window. The only vehicle in sight was a small truck.

  “No, I think we’re in the clear.”

  I felt sick at heart. To think that I’d been so near to Alexis, missing him by just a few minutes. If only, I thought despondently, we’d not had that holdup getting the car out of the garage, then we might have been in time. We might have reached the Hotel des Alpes-Maritimes before the gathering reporters had driven Alexis away.

  I said, puzzled, “I still don’t see how those newspapermen could have tracked Alexis down so quickly.”

  “These things happen, Gail—there’s nothing so surprising about it. The press world is geared to acting fast on information received, and all manner of people give them tipoffs in return for a small handout. Hotel staff, taxi drivers—it could have been anyone.” He shrugged his shoulders. “If only Alexis realized, he’s asking for publicity by staying at these deluxe places. Sitting up and begging for it. If he just had the sense to choose somewhere a shade less flashy, he’d stand a chance of getting by unnoticed. Now he’s had to escape from the press again, and we’re back to square one.”

  “And those reporters know about me,” I said miserably.

  “That fact hadn’t escaped my notice, either,” Brett said with withering sarcasm. “In the future you’d better watch your tongue.”

  Brett was driving fast along the promenade, and I noticed that he shot past the turn that led back to our hotel.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Somewhere quiet so we can stop and think out what to do next.”

  “Why not go back to the Etoile?”

  He didn’t try to hide his scorn. “Grow up, Gail. You just said yourself that those newsmen know about you. How long do you imagine it will take them to track down where Gail Fleming is staying in Nice? If some of them aren’t around at the Hôtel de l’Etoile within minutes, waiting to pounce on you, I’d be amazed. It’s the one place we mustn’t go to right now.”

  “But all our things are there.”

  “Hard luck! That’s the least of our worries at the moment. Unless ...” he glanced at me hopefully, “unless you’re ready to drop this half-baked scheme of yours and go back home like a sensible girl.”

  “How can I, now?” I said unhappily. “How could I ever admit to Madeleine that I got so near Alexis and then just gave up?”

  “You needn’t ever tell her.”

  Brett swung away from the seafront by some formally laid-out gardens and headed into the town. As we approached an intersection, the traffic lights changed to red and Brett pulled up. Alongside us, a big black car slid to a halt. Brett was staring straight ahead through the windshield, his fingers impatiently tapping the rim of the steering wheel. In the light of the street-lamp I could see the clean, sharp angles of his face. His mouth was set hard.

  Something beyond his profile caught my eye, something in the black car. A cascade of gleaming copper-colored hair.

  The shock was like a blow in the chest. At that same moment the woman turned her head to glance out of the window, casually at first, then with an abrupt jerk. Our eyes met point-blank. There was no possible doubt left—it was Belle Forsyth.

  I caught my breath and clutched at Brett’s arm.

  “Look, there they are.”

  The lights changed to green, and the black car surged forward. Through its rear window I could see Alexis at the wheel, the pure white of his hair. And beside him, Belle had turned in her seat to look back at us.

  “Get after them, Brett. Please hurry.”

  He reacted at once, stamping down his foot so that I felt myself pressed back into the seat.

  “Are you really certain, Gail?”

  “Yes, I saw them. Belle was looking straight at me.”

  “Do you think she recognized you?”

  “I know she did. It was just as big a shock to her as it was to me.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  We were a hundred yards behind them, and Belle still seemed to be looking back at us. Surely she must have told Alexis that she’d seen me, yet there was no sign of his slowing down. In fact he was still accelerating.

  A coldness ran through my body at the thought that he might deliberately be evading me. How could Alexis do that after our closeness to each other?

  But had Belle told him that she’d seen me? She wouldn’t want Alexis to stop and talk to me, knowing that I would try my best to persua
de him to come back to England, come back to Madeleine. If I believed that I stood a chance with Alexis, then perhaps Belle believed it, too. Perhaps she was not altogether confident of her hold on him.

  “Can’t you go any faster?” I urged Brett.

  “Have a heart. It’s a damn great Cadillac they’ve got. Our only hope is more traffic lights or some hold-up.”

  But our luck had run out. The Cadillac swept ahead of us unimpeded through the early-morning streets, until the buildings thinned out and we were beginning to climb.

  “We don’t stand a chance of catching them now, Gail. I reckon I know where they’re heading—up to the Grand Corniche road. They’ll just leave us standing.”

  “Don’t give up, Brett,” I begged. “Please.”

  The distant tail lights of the Cadillac seemed to blink, and then they were gone. We reached the bend ourselves, took it fast, and we could see the lights again, higher up, the gap between us wider. Brett coaxed our puny little car up the brutally steep gradient of the winding Corniche road. Occasionally, headlights of other cars rocketed toward us, half blinding us. And each time when they’d gone past and our eyes had recovered, the winking red lights of the Cadillac seemed a little farther away, until there was no sign of them at all in the darkness ahead.

  “Maybe they’ll stop for some reason or other,” I said without real hope. “There’s always a chance.”

  “Why in hell should they stop? Alexis’s one idea is to get away from you.”

  “No,” I protested. “I can’t believe that. I don’t believe Belle told him she’d seen us.”

  “Then why did he drive through Nice like a bat out of hell, trying to shake us off?”

  I needed an explanation of that myself. Eventually I hit on one that seemed plausible.

  “Belle might not have told him it was us on their tail. She might have said that we were reporters. She wouldn’t want Alexis to stop and give me a chance of talking to him.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Brett acknowledged grudgingly.

  He continued driving, but I could tell it was only a token gesture, just to satisfy me that he was doing his best. After another ten minutes or so he drew onto the side and cut the engine.