Quest for Alexis

by Nancy Buckingham

  Later, in Madeleine’s room, we found the answer. A tabloid newspaper, open at a center page, was lying on the bed. The picture of me, shielding my face. The story of my encounter with Belle, the cruel innuendo that Madeleine was out of her mind and would be better off in a mental home.

  Mrs. Cramp’s paper. But how had it reached Madeleine’s room?

  Could it have been put there by Freda Aiken, out of malice, as a sick joke? It would explain Freda’s present desperation. Or had Mrs. Cramp, going up to vacuum the room and finding Madeleine still asleep, somehow left the newspaper there? Accidentally or vindictively?

  Mrs. Cramp fiercely denied that she had been to my aunt’s room at all that morning. “I don’t know how the paper got there,” she said doggedly. “I brought it from home. I never even took it out of the kitchen.”

  But now that Madeleine was dead, neither of them would dare to confess. It was a dark enigma, and in all probability it would remain so.

  The doctor came quickly in response to Rudi’s urgent phone call. And then the police. We were told that of course there would have to be an inquest. Wearily, I answered the questions, dozens of questions. Yes, I had actually seen it happen. I had watched my aunt fall to her death. I was in the garden, coming back to see her, to talk to her, to tell her ...

  “To tell her what, Miss Fleming?”

  I hesitated. “I was going to tell her that she would never see my uncle again. I had come to the decision that I couldn’t put it off any longer.”

  The police inspector was a thickset, quiet-speaking man. He raised his shaggy eyebrows.

  “Why hadn’t you told her long ago, Miss Fleming? Instead, your aunt learned about her husband in a crueler way. How do you think that copy of the newspaper might have got into her room? Could Mrs. Karel have fetched it from the kitchen herself?”

  I didn’t know, I didn’t know! I only knew that Madeleine was dead. Somehow, I controlled myself.

  “Normally,” I said huskily, “my aunt never looked at a newspaper or listened to the radio. She was always rather timid. You see, she had been through a great deal when she lived in Czechoslovakia. News of any kind of violence upset her, frightened her.” Finally they left me alone.

  The morning passed with agonizing slowness. Caterina was wonderfully kind, comforting me, trying to coax me to eat something. But I couldn’t eat. I seem to remember swallowing some hot tea.

  Reporters kept arriving at the house. Sir Ralph dealt with them, keeping them away from me. I was grateful to him.

  In the afternoon I went upstairs to be alone with Madeleine. Her body had been laid upon the bed, and in death her face looked strangely calm and serene, the lids closed upon her lovely golden eyes. I felt I needed these last quiet moments of contact with my aunt. And through her, with the uncle I had loved so dearly.

  I moved about the room, imprinting every detail upon my memory. Propped on the easel beside the window, I saw her latest painting, almost finished. A work in oils.

  Unlike her delicate watercolors, it made a violent impression, the paint laid on the canvas in thick bold strokes, crude in their intensity. But even so it held a kind of tenderness. A baby, lying asleep in its cradle. Until, looking closer, I understood its true meaning. A baby laid out in its tiny coffin. The baby she had never had. The baby that was born dead.

  I lingered in the room as daylight faded, unwilling to leave. It would seem like desertion. There was nothing I could do for Madeleine now except to stay with her, filling my thoughts with memories of her.

  After the clear fine winter day, an afternoon mist was closing down. As I stood by the window, gazing out, the shapes gradually softened, growing indistinct. The lawn, the lake, the trees merged slowly into an overall grayness.

  It was then that Brett found me.

  I heard his voice from the doorway and swung around, startled, suddenly pierced through with fear.

  “Gail. I came the moment I heard about Madeleine.”

  I stared at him, not speaking, not moving.

  He came into the room and stopped at the foot of the bed, looking down at Madeleine, silently shaking his head. Then he turned to me and held out his hand.

  “Come downstairs now, Gail. I want to talk to you.”

  Still I didn’t move. Brett’s hand dropped to his side.

  “Do you think I’m some sort of monster?” he said bitterly. “Do you imagine that I’m going to try and strangle you?”

  My throat felt dry, and I couldn’t speak.

  His voice gentled. “We can’t talk here, Gail, and there’s a lot to be said. Come downstairs.”

  I hesitated a few moments longer. Then, moving stiffly, I walked past him and went out of the room. He followed me, closing the door with quiet care.

  We went down to the Winter Parlor. Rudi was there. He looked at me anxiously.

  “Would you mind leaving us for a while, Rudi,” said Brett. “I know you understand.”

  Rudi glanced at me swiftly, his dark eyes troubled, questioning. I gave him a tiny nod. Brett could not harm me here, in his father’s house. Anyway, would he want to harm me now? As far as he was concerned, it was all over. I had abandoned my search for Alexis. He could not know of my determination to go on until I had exposed the truth.

  Rudi was looking at Brett as he spoke, but I knew his words were really meant for me. “If you want me, I’ll be just outside.”

  After he had left us, we both remained standing, I beside the sofa, Brett by the fireplace. Ten feet apart.

  He said, “I heard the news just before noon. I couldn’t believe it at first—and then I knew I had to come home and be with you. I was in Geneva.”

  “In Geneva?”

  He nodded, his eyes fixed upon me steadily.

  “I was snowed in at the mas and had a terrible job getting away. I was mad as hell with you. I thought you’d done a skip the same as you did in Palma. After you drove off, I got straight through on the phone to Dougal’s hotel in Cannes. He’d already left, but I learned that just a few minutes before he’d put a call through to the Shackleton number, so I knew he must have spoken to you. They were able to tell me that he was flying to Geneva, and as soon as I could get myself back to civilization, I headed straight there. But it took me the devil of a time.”

  “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 murdered and the whole thing being an elaborate Communist 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 shadow of doubt that the Communists would dearly like to discredit Alexis Karel, if they could.”

  A pulse was beating in my throat. The room, everything 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 monstrous idea into your head?”

  I was wondering the very same thing myself. As I looked into Brett’s eyes, seeing his pain and bewilderment, 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 believe 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 American. He was marvelous. He saw it happen and managed 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 sticking 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.

  Chapter Seventeen

  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 answers. 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 circumstances 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 Madeleine 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 entail. We would have to find some clear evidence that my uncle was dead. Murdered. I was certain of it myself. 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 uncertainty. Ever since Rudi had told me about Alexis and Belle, I’d felt this tiny rift of doubt. In that penthouse 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 thi
s 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 having an affair. They were lovers.”

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

  “The evidence of my own eyes. She was often in his bedroom at night.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because several times in the early hours I happened to see her, just after she’d come out of his room. She looked terribly embarrassed and tried to cover up. And once, I remember, her own bedroom door was left wide open and no light on. I searched for her, but she was nowhere to be seen. She must have been in Alexis’s room then.”

  “What were you doing up and about in the early hours of the morning?” demanded Brett.

  Rudi was frowning. “Usually I sleep soundly. But sometimes, when I get to remembering the past, I find I cannot sleep.”