Quest for Alexis (19 page)

“Why won’t you listen to me?” I shouted. “I tell you it isn’t Dr. Karel in there.”

They weren’t prepared to waste time arguing with
me. I was torn roughly from my hold on the door
frame and bustled to the elevator. Not the lift that
waited with its doors yawning open—that way I might
be seen by hotel guests. I was taken through the swinging door to the service elevator.

The clerk or assistant manager or whoever he was
didn’t even bother to come down with us. Presumably
he was returning to the suite to make apologies to Belle.
It was clear that the porter, a burly six-foot-plus type,
would have no difficulty handling me on his own.

On the ground floor he led me to the nearest exit,
next to the kitchens.

“Please,
m’selle,
do not cause more trouble.”
Then with a fleeting little smile, as if to show there was
nothing personal in it, he pushed me outside and
slammed the door in my face.

An aching numbness inside me, I stumbled around
the huge hotel with some vague idea of making another
attack through the front entrance. But as I went up the steps, the doorman spotted me at once and came for
ward meaningfully. Defeated, I gave up and crossed
the wide roadway to the lakeside.

All other thoughts were forced from my mind as the
frantic question pounded. What had happened to
Alexis? Where was he?

The answer came swiftly, with no shred of doubt to
offer me comfort. My uncle must be dead.
Murdered.

With sickening clarity, I knew that I had uncovered
a most sinister plot. An elaborate, meticulously worked-
out plot to discredit Alexis Karel and everything he
stood for.

For the Communists, it was not good enough simply
to remove Alexis from the scene—to kidnap him, or
arrange to have him killed. Any such plan would de
feat their objective. Alexis Karel, on his disappearance or death, would spring into the headlines of the world’s
press as a noble martyr, an inspiring symbol of resis
tance to oppression.

So instead they had devised a scheme to substitute
a false Alexis. An Alexis Karel whose callous betrayal
of his sick wife, and vulgar flaunting of a young mistress
in some of the flashiest hotels in Europe was so outra
geous that it would shock the millions of people who
had revered him—from personal friends like Sir Ralph
Warrender to the ordinary man and woman on both
sides of the Iron Curtain.

The deception had been so clever—the fake Alexis
made to look so incredibly like the real one—that it
would fool almost everybody. Only someone who knew
Alexis intimately would be able to tell the difference.
Only someone like me.

Convinced that I was right, I still felt dazed at the amount of planning that must have been required, the
painstaking details of organization and timing. And I guessed that the Communists had taken into their cal
culations the fact that Alexis Karel’s niece, Gail Flem
ing, the person closest to him apart from his wife,
would be conveniently out of the way in the United
States.

My sudden return home, my decision to track down
and confront my uncle must have jeopardized the
whole operation. I had to be stopped. At all costs I
had to be prevented from exposing the truth.

But killing me would be dangerous, causing ques
tions to be asked, suspicions aroused—unless my death
could appear beyond doubt to be accidental. There
must not be the faintest breath of a hint that I might
have been murdered.

And so Brett had been picked for the job. Brett
Warrender, well-known TV personality, close family
friend and at one time my lover. An incredible but
unimpeachable choice.

I leaned against the stone balustrade and wept.
Tears of grief and pity—for Alexis, for Madeleine, for myself. Tears of fear and bitter anger.

Since my “accident” at the
mas
I
had understood
Brett’s true role, known that his orders were to prevent
me from reaching Alexis—even if it meant killing me. But I had believed that the Communists were merely
taking advantage of circumstance—seeing Alexis Karel’s sudden desertion of his wife for a younger
woman (and consequent damage to his prestige) as a
useful piece of propaganda for their cause.

The truth was far more terrible.

“Gail, I’ve been looking for you.”

Even as I turned, recognizing the voice, Dougal’s
arm came around my shoulder. His finger tilted up my chin so that our eyes met.

“You’re crying,” he said. “And no wonder. I’ve just heard about the scene you had with Belle Forsyth.”

“Oh, Dougal.”

With a sob of relief, I clutched at the lapels of his
tweed overcoat. He was my only friend in this hostile
city.

He held me for a moment and then said, “You’re
shivering. Are you cold?”

I shook my head, unable to speak.

He said sympathetically, “It must have been hell for you. Actually, I had another interview with your uncle
when I arrived this afternoon—I came up by plane. It surprised me how ready he still is to talk, considering
he’s been trying like mad to dodge the press. Naturally
I don’t agree with his I’m-all-right-Jack philosophy,
but coming from a man like him it makes damn good
copy.” Dougal hesitated. “Gail, I didn’t mention you were on your way to see him. I thought you wouldn’t want me to. But I wish I had now. I might have been
able to warn you of the reception you were likely to
get. Just a while ago, I went back to the Cosmos to see
if you and Brett had turned up (where is he, inciden
tally?) and the press chaps were talking about the
way that Forsyth bitch had rammed into you. If you
want my opinion, your uncle is a bastard.”

“He isn’t my uncle,” I burst out, suddenly finding my
voice.

Dougal stared at me. “You mean you’re not Alexis Karel’s niece? But Brett said—”

“No, no, I mean that the man in the hotel isn’t
Alexis Karel at all. He’s a fake. I’ve seen him. Just
now I went up there ... in a service elevator ... and
I managed to get into their penthouse. It’s
not
my
uncle.”

“Now hold on a minute, Gail. You say you actually saw this man, you talked to him, and he isn’t Alexis Karel?”

“That’s right. But I didn’t talk to him—I didn’t get
a chance. As soon as he saw me, he looked scared to
death and rushed into the bedroom. And then Belle
came out, and the next minute a manager type and a porter came up to fetch me. They wouldn’t listen to a word I said, Dougal. I was taken down in the service
elevator again and thrown out with a warning not to
go back there.”

“Gail,” he broke in reproachfully, “what you’re
really saying is that your uncle wouldn’t talk to you. I
don’t blame you for being upset. It was a wretched
thing to have happened. But that’s no reason for mak
ing wild accusations about him being a phony.”

“But don’t you see,” I insisted, “this explains everything. It’s all a horrible plot to destroy Alexis—to de
stroy his good name, I mean, and make everyone turn
against him—just when his book is coming out with all
those terrible revelations about the Communists. You
realize what they’ve done? They’ve
murdered
Alexis
and put this other man in his place. It’s a good enough likeness to deceive most people, but I know my uncle
too well to be taken in. That’s why they dared not let
me catch up with this fake Alexis Karel. That’s why he
and Belle keep moving from one place to another.”

“Gail,” said Dougal uneasily. “I honestly don’t
think...”

I rushed on, sure I could make him understand.
“Brett is mixed up in it too, Dougal. He pretended to
be helping me find Alexis, but all the time he was
really making sure that I didn’t succeed.”

“For God’s sake,” Dougal protested. “You must be
out of your mind suggesting that Brett is mixed up
with the Commies. It’s a fantastic idea.”

“Is it? Then why did he try to kill me?”

Dougal stared at me, his mouth gaping.
“Brett
tried
to
kill
you?”

“Yes, twice. The first time was in Palma when a
car nearly ran me down in some back street—I’m sure
it was him. And this morning, at the little
mas
he took
me to up in the mountains, he tried to make me fall
over a cliff. Of course, he made it seem like an acci
dent. But there wasn’t anyone else within miles, and
anyway I saw his footprint in the snow. So as soon as
I got a chance, when Brett had gone out—that was
when you phoned, Dougal—I took the car and drove
off. Brett came chasing after me, trying to stop me,
but luckily I was able to get away from him.”

Dismayed, I realized Dougal was by now not even
listening. He was refusing to believe a single word I
was saying. He evaded my eyes, and I could sense the
sudden withdrawal of his sympathy.

“I’m sorry, Gail, but it’s really going too far—trying to drag Brett in like that. I realize these past few days
have been a terrible strain on you, and in a way I can
understand you inventing this story about a fake Alexis
Karel, but—”

“I didn’t invent it. I tell you the man I saw wasn’t
my uncle.”

“How can you be so certain? A quick glimpse of
somebody whose one and only idea was to get away
from you, because he felt so ashamed.”

“He wasn’t ashamed—he was
scared.
He knew that
if he stayed in the room, I’d see through him. He knew he couldn’t hope to fool me.”

Dougal was silent for a minute, thoughtful. “You
say that the Communists have hatched up an elaborate plot to smash Alexis Karel’s reputation and destroy the value of his book. But don’t you see, Gail, it could just
as easily be the other way around. That
you
are des
perately trying to prevent your uncle from toppling off his pedestal, by inventing this whole story of a Com
munist plot. Try and ask yourself—if you were on
the outside, looking in, which version would you be
lieve?”

“Which do
you
believe, Dougal?” I whispered. “Me
or the Communists?”

Swiftly, his hand closed over mine. He said gently,
“You’re confused, Gail. All mixed up. I’m sorry to
sound unsympathetic. Maybe you really do believe all
this about a phony Alexis Karel, maybe you’ve con
vinced yourself—I don’t know. But you mustn’t try and
drag Brett Warrender into it. That really isn’t fair.”

“I tell you, Brett tried to kill me.”

He gave an exasperated sigh. “If you persist in say
ing that, Gail, you can’t expect me to help you.”

I jumped on his words eagerly.
“Will
you help me,
Dougal?”

“If I can,” he said cautiously, “of course I will.”

“Then send this story back to your paper. Not about
Brett, if you don’t want to—but all the rest of it. You’ll have it exclusive, remember—that’s what you wanted,
isn’t it? And when the
Globe
has published it, other
papers will pick it up.”

“Oh yes, they’d do that, all right. They’d make the
Globe
a laughingstock. No newspaper would risk its
neck on such stuff. There’s not a shred of evidence.”

“But it’s
true,”
I flashed back bitterly. “I give you
my word it’s true.”

“You’re an interested party, Gail. So I’m afraid your
word wouldn’t carry much weight. In fact, quite the
reverse. Believe me, there isn’t an editor in Fleet Street
who would touch it.”

It was as if there was a barrier between us, a solid
wall that blocked off understanding. In my innocence
I’d thought I had only to tell what I knew about the
impostor who called himself Alexis Karel, and I would
immediately be believed. But now I knew differently.