Quest for Alexis

by Nancy Buckingham

  There was no answer, so I knocked again, loudly. The door was suddenly flung open, and I knew at once that I’d chosen wrongly. A short, pink-faced man stood there rocking unsteadily, a large glass in his hand. He leered at me.

  “Excusez-moi ...” I said. My limited French deserted me. “I was looking for Dr. Karel.”

  “Ach so!” he grunted, obviously not understanding. Breathing brandy fumes, he grabbed at my hand, trying to drag me inside.

  Hastily, I pulled away from him. He glared at me with bloodshot eyes, muttered something, and slammed the door.

  Scared that the hotel would be sending someone after me at any moment, I ran to the door of the other suite and rapped loudly.

  A man’s voice responded, “Qui est là?”

  I had a sudden fear that if I said my name Alexis might refuse to let me in.

  I called, “C’est la femme de chambre, monsieur” and hoped that the thickness of the door would mask my poor accent.

  “Entrez.”

  My heart racing painfully, I opened the door and stepped inside.

  It was a large, luxuriously appointed suite, softly lit by wall sconces and silk-shaded table lamps. Only one person was in there—Alexis. He lay comfortably stretched out on a long, gold brocade sofa, reading a newspaper. He had his back to me.

  I closed the door quietly and stood wailing for him to turn around and see me. Seconds went past, each seeming like a minute. My palms were moist, and I could feel a pulse throbbing at my temple. I watched as, slowly, Alexis reached out to a glass ashtray on a low ebony-topped table and flicked ash from the cigar he was smoking.

  At last, aware of my presence, my silence, Alexis closed his newspaper and swung around to look at me. But I saw no sign of pleased recognition in his eyes. Only a glint of anger.

  “Qu’est-ce que vous voulez?” he asked irritably.

  My throat felt so tight and constricted that I could only manage a whisper as I took a step toward him.

  “Alexis.”

  In a quick, startled movement he sprang to his feet and faced me. And in that same instant I knew the truth. It swept over me, engulfed me, drowned me.

  This man was not Alexis Karel. He was not my uncle, but an impostor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Standing by the lakeside, my fingers gripping the cold stone of the balustrade, I stared down into the dark water. A million reflected lights danced upon the surface, distorted to shivering needles by the blur of my tears.

  Only minutes before I had been escorted down from the penthouse floor of the Cosmos and requested not to return. Warned not to set foot in the hotel again.

  While, shocked and horrified, I stood staring at the man who looked so much like Alexis, he had fled without a word, retreating to an inner room. A moment later Belle Forsyth had emerged and started to hustle me outside.

  “Why do you persist like this, Gail?” she demanded angrily. “I told you that your uncle will not see you.”

  I shook myself free of her.

  “That man is not my uncle,” I shouted. “He isn’t Alexis.”

  I saw the swift startled narrowing of her eyes. Then, recovering quickly, Belle caught hold of me in a vicious grip, forcing me toward the door.

  “What stupid nonsense you talk. I can’t imagine what you hope to gain by it.”

  I grabbed at the door frame and clung to it frantically.

  “What are you up to, Belle? What’s it all about? What has happened to Alexis? Where is he?”

  “Alexis is through there in the bedroom, of course. And he won’t be coming out until you have gone. Just get this into your head once and for all—he doesn’t want to see you. He doesn’t want anything more to do with you, ever. Just stay out of his life, that’s all he asks.”

  Across the circular hall, the elevator had stopped. Two men stepped out. One was some sort of manager, sleek in a black jacket and pinstriped trousers, the other wore a porter’s uniform.

  Belle called, “Thank goodness you’ve come. I think she must be out of her mind.”

  As they advanced on me, I said desperately, “You don’t understand—the man in there isn’t Dr. Karel at all. He’s an impostor.”

  They ignored my protests. I might not have spoken. The porter took over from Belle, holding my arm in a powerful, no-nonsense grip. The other man addressed me sternly, with only the thinnest veil of courtesy.

  “I trust you will not make any further disturbance, m’selle. If you will please just leave the hotel quietly, we will say no more of this incident.”

  “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 forward 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 defeat 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 resistance 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 outrageous 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 calculations the fact that Alexis Karel’s niece, Gail Fleming, 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 questions 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 le
aned 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, incidentally?) 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 making 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 destroy 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 accident. 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 desperately trying to prevent your uncle from toppling off his pedestal, by inventing this whole story of a Communist plot. Try and ask yourself—if you were on the outside, looking in, which version would you believe?”

  “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 convinced 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 saying 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.

  “Oh, Dougal, what am I going to do?” I cried in despair.

  I might have guessed what his advice would be.

  “If I were you, Gail, I’d go back to England. Back home.”

  “But how can I? How can I with that man still acting a part, and Alexis—dead? I can’t allow them to win without fighting back.”

  Dougal let out
a long breath, as if regretting his own weakness in pandering to me.

  “If you like, if it will help reconcile you, Gail, I’ll go and have another talk with Dr. Karel. I can pretend there are one or two points I want clarified from my interview this afternoon. With any luck, I might even get hold of him right now.”

  “Oh, would you really, Dougal.” I was ready to clutch at any straw. “If you could talk to him, knowing what I’ve told you, you might catch him out. He might easily slip up and give himself away.”

  Dougal shook his head. “I shan’t be trying to catch him out, Gail, for the simple reason that I believe he really is the man he claims to be. But I’d hate you to think I’m not willing to help when you’re in trouble. If Brett were here, I could leave him to worry about you. But God knows where he is at this moment. Quite possibly he never even got away from that place you were staying at. There’ve been reports of heavy snowfalls in the Basses Alpes. I reckon you must have been lucky and got out of the district just in time.”

  If Brett was stuck at La Retraite, then I didn’t have any cause to fear him. Not for the moment. At least it gave me time to act—while he couldn’t interfere.

  Dougal said, “Look, Gail, I don’t like leaving you standing around here while I’m gone. Suppose I take you along to the next hotel, and you can wait for me in the bar.”

  I shook my head. “No, I feel such a mess. I’ll sit in the car. It’s parked outside the Cosmos.”

  Dougal walked over the road with me to the Renault.

  “I’ll try not to be too long,” he said. “You stay here, promise.” He paused, looking at me intently. “You’ve done some foolish things this last day or two, Gail. But the stupidest by far was running away from Brett. Now don’t run away again.”

  * * * *

  I watched Dougal’s tall figure heading for the entrance of the Hotel Cosmos. Despite his quick strides, he seemed to move reluctantly. I knew I ought to feel grateful to him, he had tried to be kind. Yet I felt a bitter hostility because he refused to accept my word.