Quest for Alexis (13 page)

“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 an
other. 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 some
where 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.”

Brett and I were suddenly left alone near the reception
desk as the reporters surged away toward the new
comer, 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 be
tween his finger and thumb.

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

“Monsieur,
I know nothing. My instructions were ex
actly 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 mut
tered. “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 news
papermen could have tracked Alexis down so quickly.”

“These things happen, Gail—there’s nothing so sur
prising 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 miser
ably.

“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, “un
less 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, some
thing 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 be
side 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 accel
erating.

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 persuade him to come back to England, come back to Madeleine. If
I
believed that I stood a chance with Alexis, then perhaps Belle be
lieved 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 stand
ing.”

“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 gradi
ent of the winding Corniche road. Occasionally, head
lights 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 be
lieve 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.

“We might as well face it—we’ve lost them. So we’d better decide what to do now. Give up, Gail, that’s my
advice.”

I didn’t answer him. After a moment, I said, “Will
Dougal still be willing to help us, do you think?”

“Dougal must be hopping mad at this moment. He
thought he’d got an exclusive, and by now he’ll have
found out that the story is blown.”

“But he can’t blame
us
for that.”

“Let’s hope not. We’ll have to see.”

We had climbed very high. In these last moments
before sunrise, the sea seemed to glow with an opales
cent sheen, broken by bars of shadow. Far below a
few pinpricks of light marked a small town somewhere
along the coast. A car flashed past us on the road, but
when the sound of its engine had faded there was only
silence.

I thought of all the other times that Brett and I had
stopped by the roadside at some quiet spot. Now, in the
little Renault, he and I were sitting very close but not
quite touching—carefully not touching. Yet I had
never been more aware of him. I had never felt more dependent on him. I was conscious of that faint elusive
redolence that makes up a man—this one special man.
A subtle blend impossible to define, the warm male
smell of him.

Nervously I edged away another inch and instantly
experienced a curious sense of chill.

Brett said thoughtfully, “What we need is a hideout.
Somewhere that’s safe from reporters, but with a phone
so we can keep in touch with Dougal. And I think I
know just the place.”

“Where, Brett?” I asked eagerly.

“It’s not far from here, up in the hills toward the
Italian border. A couple of friends of mine have a
small house there—an old
mas
they’ve had renovated.
There’s not a neighbor within miles. They’re the kind
who like to get away from it all.”

I felt dubious. “But, Brett, we can’t land ourselves
on them just like that. I mean, if they like peace and
quiet...”

“Leave it all to me,” he said confidently, starting the car. “Let’s drive on until we find a cafe, and we’ll have
some breakfast. Then as soon as it’s a reasonable hour
to get civilized people from their beds, I’ll give the Shackletons a ring.”

Against reason, perhaps, I felt a surge of new hope.
I had actually seen Alexis, and the more I thought
about it, the more convinced I became that Belle
hadn’t told him about seeing me. It was a theory that
made sense. Comforting, encouraging sense. Belle
Forsyth was
afraid
of letting me talk to my uncle.