Quest for Alexis (24 page)

“You ... you saw Dougal?” I asked faintly.

“Oh yes, I saw Dougal. And he told me.” Brett’s
face creased into an expression of pain. “Gail, how
could you possibly imagine I’d want to harm you? Let
alone—”

“You wanted to stop me reaching Alexis,” I said
chokily. “I mean, that man who was
pretending
to be
Alexis.”

Brett took a pace toward me, and instinctively I
moved back.

“When Dougal first told me the fantastic things
you’d been saying, Gail—about your uncle being mur
dered and the whole thing being an elaborate Com
munist plot to bring discredit on the name Alexis Karel
—I thought the same as him. I thought you’d gone out
of your mind from the strain of it all, clutching at any
wild theory that would let you keep your faith in
Alexis. But then I got to thinking.”

Suddenly breathless, I waited for him to go on. The
room was silent, the whole house very still. Brett
glanced away fleetingly, then his eyes returned to me.

“Gail, I’m beginning more and more to think you
must be right. So many details seem to fit. You insisted
all along that the way this man’s been acting is completely out of character for Alexis—running off with
Belle Forsyth, staying at those luxury hotels, going out
of his way to attract publicity. And there’s not a shad
ow of doubt that the Communists would dearly like to
discredit Alexis Karel, if they could.”

A pulse was beating in my throat. The room, every
thing around me, was slowly dissolving into a haze.
Only Brett’s face stood out sharp and clear. If Brett
believed in me, it meant...

He went on, “I decided my best plan was to hang
on in Geneva for a bit. Then, wherever that pair turned
up next, I could rush straight off and confront them.
I’d be able to tell whether it was Alexis or not, and
that would sort it out one way or the other. But I’ve
got a hunch that if you’re right, Gail, and he
is a
phony, then we’ve seen the last of them.”

“We have,” I burst out. “I’m positive they won’t make another appearance. The Communists have
achieved what they set out to achieve.”

Brett said grimly, “If those bastards have murdered
Alexis, then I swear to God I won’t let them get away
with it.”

“They did kill him, Brett. I know they did.”

He came to me, taking hold of my hands, and I
didn’t flinch away. Brett looked into my eyes, sadly,
searchingly.

“Gail, I was shattered when Dougal told me the
rest of it—that you believed I was one of
them
and
had been trying to kill you. I thought it was some sort
of stupid joke. And then I thought again about the
strange way you’d acted after your fall—the way you’d
looked
at me, as if I scared you to death—and then
driving off in the car like someone crazy. But
why,
darling? It hurts like hell. Whatever put such a mon
strous idea into your head?”

I was wondering the very same thing myself. As I
looked into Brett’s eyes, seeing his pain and bewilder
ment, it seemed inconceivable now that I could ever
have suspected him. And yet ... there were so many
things still unexplained.

“Brett, there
was
a man up on that crag. He called
out for help, in
English.
It was just when I was turning
back because I realized the path was dangerously icy.
I heard him shouting, and that made me press on. I
was hurrying to him and suddenly I slipped and fell
over the edge. By some miracle I was saved by a bush
only a few feet down, and I was able to scramble up to the path again. Otherwise, I’d have been killed.”

Brett’s fingers tightened on mine. “I had no idea.
You didn’t tell me it was so bad.” He shook his head
slowly, thoughtfully. “All the same, Gail, I still think it
was just the wind you heard. But even if you did be
lieve it was a man, why
me?”

“I didn’t see who else it could have been. Besides, there was the footprint.”

“Footprint?” he asked, mystified.

“In a patch of snow, up above the path—the imprint
of
your
shoe! I recognized the pattern of the tread.”

“Well, that’s easily explained. I’d climbed up to the top of the crag the afternoon before, while you were
having a sleep.”

“Oh, Brett, I didn’t think of that.” Suddenly I felt
the need to justify myself, to show him I’d had some rational foundation for my fantastic ideas. “You see,
coming after the other things it all seemed to add up
and click into place.
You
could have been responsible
for every one of them.”

“What other things?” asked Brett sharply.

“Well, the car that nearly ran me down in Palma.
I’m convinced it wasn’t a drunk or anything like that.
It was
deliberate
—and I remembered how you talked
me out of going to the police. And smaller things, too.
Like in Nice, when there was that car blocking our
Renault in the hotel garage, delaying us so that we just
missed seeing Alexis before he checked out. I wanted to take a taxi, but you said no. And that stupid night porter took ages sorting out the right key, so I argued
you must have bribed him to be so slow. And at London Airport, just when I was starting out, someone
snatched my handbag. Without my passport, I couldn’t
have left the country. Luckily, there was this Ameri
can. He was marvelous. He saw it happen and man
aged to grab the thief and make him drop my bag.”

As he listened to me, Brett’s expression had slowly
changed, and now his brow was creased in a heavy
frown.

“It does seem to add up, Gail. Someone—or some
organization—was pretty desperate to prevent you from catching up with Belle and the man she’s with.
It looks as if they must have had people tailing you
from the moment you first set out after Alexis, and
they took every opportunity they could find to stop
you. But it had to appear accidental.” He took a quick, angry breath. “And to think I was with you the whole
time and allowed it to happen. A lot of use I was when you needed me.”

“Brett, I still don’t really understand.
Why
did you
insist on coming with me to Majorca? And then stick
ing with me? I kept wondering.”

“Don’t you really know, Gail? Can’t you guess? You
see, I reckoned you were in for disillusionment when
you saw Alexis. I was sure you’d be badly hurt, and I
wanted to be there to pick up the pieces. God forgive
me, though, I never realized
...
I never dreamed for a
second that your life was in danger.”

Suddenly, as if without conscious thought from either
of us, I was in his arms. Brett held me close and I
buried my face in his shoulder. Tenderly, he stroked
my hair.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this, Gail,” he
whispered. “It’s got to be brought out into the open,
and I won’t let up until it is.”

Beneath his gentleness with me I was aware of the anger in him, matching my own anger. But I felt an
overwhelming sense of relief, too, a surging joy at
knowing that I was no longer alone. I had Brett again.

Everything seemed to lead back to Belle Forsyth. She
was the key figure—a figure shrouded in mystery.

Brett said, “I’ve got a feeling that if we could once
get a lead on Belle, we might begin to find some an
swers. How did she ever come to get a job here, Gail?”

I shook my head, feeling a flush of guilt. It had been
just at the time of my break-up with Brett, and I had
been too absorbed in my misery to question the circum
stances of Belle Forsyth’s coming. When I next went
home for the weekend, Belle was already an accepted
member of the household. Like everyone else, I had
thought her eminently suitable as a companion for my
aunt.

“I suppose I just assumed Alexis had arranged it
through an agency or something,” I said. “But we
could ask Rudi. He would know.”

It was late in the evening, but I don’t believe that
anybody at Deer’s Leap was considering going to bed.
We were all of us still in a state of shock, grieving for Madeleine.

I guessed that Sir Ralph and Caterina were inwardly
raging against the man they believed had driven Made
leine to take her own life. Brett and I hadn’t attempted
to undeceive them. What was the use of removing one
horror only to substitute a more sinister one in their
minds? Time enough, when Brett and I could find
some positive proof to vindicate Alexis.

With a sense of dread, I knew what this would en
tail. We would have to find some clear evidence that
my uncle was dead. Murdered. I was certain of it my
self. And I thought that by now Brett believed it as
surely as I did.

And Rudi—what did
he
believe?

I hated having to admit to Brett what Rudi had told me earlier, but there must be no concealment between
us now.

“Rudi thinks—he says he’s
sure
that Alexis and Belle
were having an affair here at Deer’s Leap long before
they went away together.”

Brett turned his head, staring at me. “When did he
tell you this?”

“When I got back during the night. He said that he’d
known for some time, but there was nothing he could
do about it.”

Frowning deeply to himself, Brett said, “If it’s true,
Gail, it puts a very different complexion on the whole
thing. We’ll have to start wondering if we aren’t on the wrong tack after all.”

“No.” The word jerked out of me, almost in panic. I
couldn’t bear to lose Brett’s support now. “The man
with Belle in Geneva—I
know
it wasn’t Alexis. I
actually saw him. And ... and remember all those
other things—all the attempts to stop me reaching him.”

I was filled with fear because of my own inner un
certainty. Ever since Rudi had told me about Alexis
and Belle, I’d felt this tiny rift of doubt. In that pent
house suite in Geneva, I’d been certain the man was
not Alexis. But now, with only my memory to guide me,
only my instincts, could I really be so positive? The
question tormented me.

Brett said, “We’d better have a talk with Rudi and
see if he can shed any further light.”

Rudi was in the Oak Room. We found him sitting
behind the typewriter staring blankly into space. Brett
came straight to the point.

“Gail has just this minute told me what you were
saying about Alexis and Belle having some sort of
affair. What makes you think so?”

Rudi rose slowly to his feet. The light from the desk
lamp, striking up through the parchment shade, caught
his face from underneath so that his eyes were lost in
shadow.

“It’s quite true,” he said defensively. “They were. I
told Gail because I thought she ought to know. She’d
got a wild idea in her head that the man she saw in
Geneva wasn’t Alexis.”

Brett reached out his arm and drew me against him.
“Gail had several wild ideas in her head. But this about
it not being Alexis—I think she may well be right
there.”

I heard Rudi’s sharp intake of breath. He sat down
again, heavily, and put his hands to his face. After a
long pause, he spoke in a low, unhappy voice.

“Gail thinks that if she is right
...
if it
wasn’t
Alexis,
then we must assume that Alexis is dead.” Rudi lifted
his head and looked at Brett. “Would you rather believe that Alexis is dead?”

“It’s not a question of what we
want
to believe,”
said Brett roughly. “We’re trying to get at the truth.”

“I’ve told you the truth. Alexis and Belle were hav
ing an affair. They were lovers.”

“But what evidence have you for saying that?” in
sisted Brett.