Quest for Alexis (21 page)

All the color had drained from Rudi’s face, leaving an ashen mask. “What does this mean? What’s hap
pened to Alexis?”

I stared up at him, willing him to tell me I was
utterly wrong in what I believed. Yet I was certain
that he couldn’t.

“You know the Communists even better than I do,
Rudi. You know the ruthless way they plan and
scheme. If they wanted to destroy Alexis Karel, to de
stroy everything he stood for, to make his very name
hated and despised, isn’t this just the sort of thing
they’re capable of?”

Rudi was standing with his eyes closed, swaying
slightly as if he felt faint. When he opened his eyes
again, I saw the shock and grief in them.

“Can they have killed him?” he whispered in a long an
guished breath. “Can they really have murdered him?”

For endless silent seconds we stared at each other while our minds took in the full horror. Not just that
Alexis was dead, but the terrible implications of his
murder, the ruthlessness we were up against. I had
already faced it before, this moment of appalled realization. But now, with Rudi, I experienced it again, no
less intensely than the first time.

I said at last, “The Communists tried everything to
stop me catching up with that pair. They knew I
wouldn’t be deceived, any more than you would be,
Rudi. They even tried to kill me—twice they tried.” I
hesitated, taking a deep breath. “And there’s something
else. Brett is involved in it, too. That’s why he insisted on coming with me. It was his job to keep tabs on me
and make sure I didn’t ever get near Belle and that man.” My voice cracked. “It... it was Brett who tried
to kill me.”

“Brett?
You don’t know what you’re saying, Gail!”

He held out his arms to me, as if pleading with me to stop telling him these terrible things. I rose to my
feet, clutching at him in a desperate need for reassur
ance. His hand touched my hair gently.

“Not
Brett,
Gail. These other things, they may be
true—I don’t know what to think. But Brett War
render, no. I haven’t liked him, but only because of
the way he hurt you. I can’t believe he was involved in anything like that.”

“He
is,
I tell you. I ought to have been suspicious
of him from the start. I ought to have guessed he was up to something when he was so determined to stick
with me.”

“Perhaps,” said Rudi hesitantly, “it was as I sug
gested before—that Brett still loves you.”

That was exactly what Brett had wanted me to be
lieve, I thought with a stabbing remembrance. He had
wanted to lull any possible doubts I might have had
about him. That night we spent together in the little
mas,
deep in the mountains of Provence. In my fierce joy, I imagined that our love was being reborn. After
ward, in the gray light of morning, I’d concluded sadly that to Brett it had been just an interlude.

But it had taken an attempt to murder me before I
saw Brett’s lovemaking as the coldly calculating piece
of seduction it really was.

“Rudi, what am I to do?” I cried desperately. “How
can I expose this plot? How can I
prove
it?”

Rudi didn’t answer. In the silence I heard a sudden
flurry of raindrops lash the leaded window panes.

“Somehow,” I went on with agonized determination,
“somehow or other we’ve got to find evidence. We’ve
got to show that Belle Forsyth is a Communist and was
deliberately planted here at Deer’s Leap. And we’ve
got to find some way of proving that the Communists
murdered Alexis.”

Rudi interrupted me. “Gail ... can you really be
so sure that Alexis is dead?”

“Of course he’s dead,” I insisted. “Other
wise, there would always be a risk of the whole story
coming out.”

“No, I meant... can you really be quite positive it
wasn’t Alexis you saw in Geneva? You could have
made a mistake.”

I shook my head emphatically. “I wasn’t mistaken,
Rudi. I
know
I wasn’t. I came face to face with the
man, hardly six feet away, and it was definitely not
Alexis.”

“What exactly makes you so certain?”

“Everything. It’s difficult to pin it down, but when
you know a person as I knew Alexis, you can’t be
deceived.”

“But you say you only saw him for a few seconds,
and you didn’t get a chance to speak to him. Just
consider
...
if in fact Alexis
has
run off with Belle
Forsyth, abandoning poor Madeleine, then he’ll be feel
ing terribly guilty. When he was suddenly confronted
by you, Gail, he’d have been deeply ashamed. That
would be enough to make him act differently—oddly.”

I took a step back, out of Rudi’s arms, gripped by a
sense of cold betrayal.

“You too,” I murmured bitterly. “You think I’m
imagining it all, don’t you, because I can’t accept the
truth? Oh, Rudi, do you honestly believe I would wish
Alexis dead in
any
circumstances?”

He shook his head in a bewildered, unhappy way.
His voice was thick with emotion. “I don’t know.
Perhaps it’s because I can’t bear to believe that he’s
dead, Gail. Not in the way you suggest. Not murdered. If that were really true, then I think
...
I think I should
want to die myself. I keep remembering that night he
disappeared—going over and over it in my mind.”

I felt a sudden flood of pity for him. “But, Rudi,
you can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

He turned away and started to fiddle nervously with
the spiraled cord of the telephone on the library desk.
The movement jogged the phone in its cradle, making
the bell give a sharp ting.

“Gail, there is something I haven’t told you. Something you ought to know. It rather alters things.”

“What is it, Rudi? Tell me.”

I watched him struggling to overcome his reluc
tance. Then he squared his shoulders, and his eyes met
mine.

“Alexis
was
having an affair with Belle Forsyth.
Here at Deer’s Leap. I know that for a fact, Gail. It
had been going on for about three months.”

Hands pressed to my throat, I stared at Rudi. I was
too choked to speak.

“I didn’t tell you before,” he said. “I knew how it would upset you. But that was why, when the news
came through about them turning up together in Ma
jorca, I was forced to accept it. I knew that Alexis
had deserted Madeleine for Belle.” Rudi sighed deeply.
“You can imagine how wretched I’ve felt these last
few months, knowing what was going on between them
—right here under the same roof as poor Madeleine.
But what could I do? I swear I never dreamed it would
come to this, otherwise I’d have written and told you.
If only I had. You might have been able to appeal to
your uncle before things went too far.”

I felt sick with misery. Now, just as my faith in
Alexis seemed to have been given back to me, it was
being snatched away again with this horrible revela
tion. How could my uncle have carried on in such a
heartless way? Any other man, perhaps, but not Alexis
Karel. I thought of the pact between us in my child
hood, a pact which had never needed putting into
words. That at all costs Madeleine must be sheltered
and protected, never again allowed to suffer as she had
suffered in the past. I had lived by that principle ever
since. How could it possibly have meant so little to
Alexis?

“It’s not true, Rudi,” I said stubbornly. “I don’t be
lieve it.”

“I’m afraid there’s no doubt, Gail. They were care
ful, but they couldn’t conceal it from me completely. I saw her slipping out of his bedroom on more than
one occasion in the early hours.”

I crossed to the fireplace and stood there leaning my
forehead against the smooth stone mantel. However
much I wanted to disbelieve this, I couldn’t. I knew
Rudi was speaking the truth.

He said earnestly, “Gail, the man you saw in that
hotel in Geneva
...
I believe it
was
Alexis. I think it
must have been.”

I had been so completely sure, so
certain.
Yet...

Numbly, I tried to recall the scene, down to the last
fragment of detail. Clouded at first, unfocused, the
picture in my mind slowly cleared.

The large penthouse suite, luxuriously furnished,
softly lit. The man stretched comfortably on a gold
brocade sofa, reading a newspaper, his back turned
to me. At that moment I hadn’t doubted he was Alexis.

Then, irritated by my silent presence, the man had
turned to look at me. He had said sharply,
“Qu’est-ce
que vous voulez?”

While this was happening, and now in my recollec
tion, it was still Alexis. At which precise moment had I
known, with a rush of certainty, that the man was not
my uncle?

I had whispered his name. Startled, he had sprung
to his feet and spun around to face me. Yes, that was
the moment.

I concentrated upon it, holding the image there.
What was it that had told me this was not Alexis? The abundant white hair, the strong straight nose, the whole shape of his head, the upright posture, the square set of
his shoulders—everything was right.

Except the eyes.

Eyes that didn’t know me. Eyes that showed a sud
den swift fear. They were not my uncle’s eyes.

Or were they his? With an expression I had never
seen in them before—
shame!
Was Rudi right?

I was in a panic now because my certainty was
shaken. Which was the truth? Which did I
want
to be
the truth?

That Alexis was dead—murdered? That there was a
ruthless Communist plot to destroy his name?

Or that Alexis was alive and well, having deserted Madeleine, rejected me, and thrown away all the ideals he had ever stood for?

I couldn’t give an answer, even to myself.

I felt Rudi’s hand on my shoulder. He spoke softly,
gently. “Gail ... dear Gail—you must be exhausted.
Go to bed, and I’ll bring you up something. You need
to rest, to get some sleep.”

Still leaning against the mantel, I stared down between my arms at the empty hearth. Unwanted to my
mind there suddenly came the memory of the hearth
at that little
mas
in the mountains, a massive rough-
hewn slab of stone piled high with blazing pine logs.

At that moment, I couldn’t imagine how I would
ever sleep again.

As I crossed the room on my way up to bed, a sudden
commotion just outside the door halted me. A clash
of voices. Freda Aiken’s, kept low, muttering persuasively, followed by Madeleine’s, her high-pitched pro
test clearly audible through the solid oak panels.

“How dare you try and stop me. My husband has
come home, and I want to see him.”

For a fleeting second Rudi and I stared at each oth
er in dismay before the door was abruptly flung open
and my aunt burst in. She was wearing her quilted pink satin robe over her nightdress.

Seeing me there, Madeleine stopped in surprise, frowning. Then she broke into a warm smile of wel
come.

“Gail, darling, so
you
are back as well.” She looked
anxiously from one to the other of us. “Where is he?
Where is Alexis?”

My heart plunged. I was totally unprepared to face
Madeleine tonight.

“I heard the car arrive,” she was saying eagerly.
“Quite a long while ago. I’ve been waiting and waiting
for him to come up to me. In the end I couldn’t bear
to wait any longer, so I came down. Where is he?”