Brett and I were suddenly left alone near the reception desk as the reporters surged away toward the newcomer, arguing noisily among themselves.
I felt the hard grip of Brett’s fingers on my wrist. “Come on, Gail—now’s our chance.” He waved a banknote at the bewildered concierge. “Quick, get us out of here without that lot knowing.”
The man caught on fast. In a couple of seconds we were being shepherded through the private office and out of a door at the rear into a long, dimly lit corridor.
Brett slid out a second banknote and held it up between his finger and thumb.
“Do you know where Dr. Karel is heading? Where he’s gone?”
“Monsieur, I know nothing. My instructions were exactly as I told you. All arrangements must have been made with the manager personally. Perhaps he could—”
“There’s no time for that,” said Brett. “We’ve got to get out of here before they catch on that we’ve gone.”
We emerged into a dark courtyard. Brett was still gripping me by the wrist.
“It must be this way around to the front,” he muttered. “I hope to God those press boys won’t have come out yet.”
We were in luck. When we reached the forecourt, we were within a few yards of where the Renault was parked. There were no reporters in sight. We made a quick dash to the car and were away in a moment, swinging out onto the promenade, heading back the way we had come.
Brett said grimly, “I don’t think anyone saw us. Have a look and see if any car tried to follow.”
I craned my neck to peer out of the rear window. The only vehicle in sight was a small truck.
“No, I think we’re in the clear.”
I felt sick at heart. To think that I’d been so near to Alexis, missing him by just a few minutes. If only, I thought despondently, we’d not had that holdup getting the car out of the garage, then we might have been in time. We might have reached the Hotel des Alpes-Maritimes before the gathering reporters had driven Alexis away.
I said, puzzled, “I still don’t see how those newspapermen could have tracked Alexis down so quickly.”
“These things happen, Gail—there’s nothing so surprising about it. The press world is geared to acting fast on information received, and all manner of people give them tipoffs in return for a small handout. Hotel staff, taxi drivers—it could have been anyone.” He shrugged his shoulders. “If only Alexis realized, he’s asking for publicity by staying at these deluxe places. Sitting up and begging for it. If he just had the sense to choose somewhere a shade less flashy, he’d stand a chance of getting by unnoticed. Now he’s had to escape from the press again, and we’re back to square one.”
“And those reporters know about me,” I said miserably.
“That fact hadn’t escaped my notice, either,” Brett said with withering sarcasm. “In the future you’d better watch your tongue.”
Brett was driving fast along the promenade, and I noticed that he shot past the turn that led back to our hotel.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Somewhere quiet so we can stop and think out what to do next.”
“Why not go back to the Etoile?”
He didn’t try to hide his scorn. “Grow up, Gail. You just said yourself that those newsmen know about you. How long do you imagine it will take them to track down where Gail Fleming is staying in Nice? If some of them aren’t around at the Hôtel de l’Etoile within minutes, waiting to pounce on you, I’d be amazed. It’s the one place we mustn’t go to right now.”
“But all our things are there.”
“Hard luck! That’s the least of our worries at the moment. Unless ...” he glanced at me hopefully, “unless you’re ready to drop this half-baked scheme of yours and go back home like a sensible girl.”
“How can I, now?” I said unhappily. “How could I ever admit to Madeleine that I got so near Alexis and then just gave up?”
“You needn’t ever tell her.”
Brett swung away from the seafront by some formally laid-out gardens and headed into the town. As we approached an intersection, the traffic lights changed to red and Brett pulled up. Alongside us, a big black car slid to a halt. Brett was staring straight ahead through the windshield, his fingers impatiently tapping the rim of the steering wheel. In the light of the street-lamp I could see the clean, sharp angles of his face. His mouth was set hard.
Something beyond his profile caught my eye, something in the black car. A cascade of gleaming copper-colored hair.
The shock was like a blow in the chest. At that same moment the woman turned her head to glance out of the window, casually at first, then with an abrupt jerk. Our eyes met point-blank. There was no possible doubt left—it was Belle Forsyth.
I caught my breath and clutched at Brett’s arm.
“Look, there they are.”
The lights changed to green, and the black car surged forward. Through its rear window I could see Alexis at the wheel, the pure white of his hair. And beside him, Belle had turned in her seat to look back at us.
“Get after them, Brett. Please hurry.”
He reacted at once, stamping down his foot so that I felt myself pressed back into the seat.
“Are you really certain, Gail?”
“Yes, I saw them. Belle was looking straight at me.”
“Do you think she recognized you?”
“I know she did. It was just as big a shock to her as it was to me.”
“I’ll bet.”
We were a hundred yards behind them, and Belle still seemed to be looking back at us. Surely she must have told Alexis that she’d seen me, yet there was no sign of his slowing down. In fact he was still accelerating.
A coldness ran through my body at the thought that he might deliberately be evading me. How could Alexis do that after our closeness to each other?
But had Belle told him that she’d seen me? She wouldn’t want Alexis to stop and talk to me, knowing that I would try my best to persuade him to come back to England, come back to Madeleine. If I believed that I stood a chance with Alexis, then perhaps Belle believed it, too. Perhaps she was not altogether confident of her hold on him.
“Can’t you go any faster?” I urged Brett.
“Have a heart. It’s a damn great Cadillac they’ve got. Our only hope is more traffic lights or some hold-up.”
But our luck had run out. The Cadillac swept ahead of us unimpeded through the early-morning streets, until the buildings thinned out and we were beginning to climb.
“We don’t stand a chance of catching them now, Gail. I reckon I know where they’re heading—up to the Grand Corniche road. They’ll just leave us standing.”
“Don’t give up, Brett,” I begged. “Please.”
The distant tail lights of the Cadillac seemed to blink, and then they were gone. We reached the bend ourselves, took it fast, and we could see the lights again, higher up, the gap between us wider. Brett coaxed our puny little car up the brutally steep gradient of the winding Corniche road. Occasionally, headlights of other cars rocketed toward us, half blinding us. And each time when they’d gone past and our eyes had recovered, the winking red lights of the Cadillac seemed a little farther away, until there was no sign of them at all in the darkness ahead.
“Maybe they’ll stop for some reason or other,” I said without real hope. “There’s always a chance.”
“Why in hell should they stop? Alexis’s one idea is to get away from you.”
“No,” I protested. “I can’t believe that. I don’t believe Belle told him she’d seen us.”
“Then why did he drive through Nice like a bat out of hell, trying to shake us off?”
I needed an explanation of that myself. Eventually I hit on one that seemed plausible.
“Belle might not have told him it was us on their tail. She might have said that we were reporters. She wouldn’t want Alexis to stop and give me a chance of talking to him.”
“You’ve got a point there,” Brett acknowledged grudgingly.
He continued driving, but I could tell it was only a token gesture, just to satisfy me that he was doing his best. After another ten minutes or so he drew onto the side and cut the engine.
“We might as well face it—we’ve lost them. So we’d better decide what to do now. Give up, Gail, that’s my advice.”
I didn’t answer him. After a moment, I said, “Will Dougal still be willing to help us, do you think?”
“Dougal must be hopping mad at this moment. He thought he’d got an exclusive, and by now he’ll have found out that the story is blown.”
“But he can’t blame us for that.”
“Let’s hope not. We’ll have to see.”
We had climbed very high. In these last moments before sunrise, the sea seemed to glow with an opalescent sheen, broken by bars of shadow. Far below a few pinpricks of light marked a small town somewhere along the coast. A car flashed past us on the road, but when the sound of its engine had faded there was only silence.
I thought of all the other times that Brett and I had stopped by the roadside at some quiet spot. Now, in the little Renault, he and I were sitting very close but not quite touching—carefully not touching. Yet I had never been more aware of him. I had never felt more dependent on him. I was conscious of that faint elusive redolence that makes up a man—this one special man. A subtle blend impossible to define, the warm male smell of him.
Nervously I edged away another inch and instantly experienced a curious sense of chill.
Brett said thoughtfully, “What we need is a hideout. Somewhere that’s safe from reporters, but with a phone so we can keep in touch with Dougal. And I think I know just the place.”
“Where, Brett?” I asked eagerly.
“It’s not far from here, up in the hills toward the Italian border. A couple of friends of mine have a small house there—an old mas they’ve had renovated. There’s not a neighbor within miles. They’re the kind who like to get away from it all.”
I felt dubious. “But, Brett, we can’t land ourselves on them just like that. I mean, if they like peace and quiet...”
“Leave it all to me,” he said confidently, starting the car. “Let’s drive on until we find a cafe, and we’ll have some breakfast. Then as soon as it’s a reasonable hour to get civilized people from their beds, I’ll give the Shackletons a ring.”
Against reason, perhaps, I felt a surge of new hope. I had actually seen Alexis, and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Belle hadn’t told him about seeing me. It was a theory that made sense. Comforting, encouraging sense. Belle Forsyth was afraid of letting me talk to my uncle.
The sun was coming up now. Under the shadow of the mountains it was still dark, but the sky was piling to an oyster gray, touched in the east with the faintest brushing of rose. Far out to sea the first rays of sunlight were glinting upon the water.
As we drove on, I watched color come back to the world, the clear vivid colors of Provence. Dark burnt orange from sun-baked earth, every shade of green and gray from the trees that hugged the slopes, the white of almond blossom and the sharp spicy yellow of mimosa. And there were bushes of some waxy-looking coral flowers that I didn’t recognize. It all stood out in high relief, glowing against the early-morning purity of the sky, the deep cobalt blue of the sea.
Soon we reached a little town called La Turbie, and Brett found somewhere to park.
“I suppose you don’t want to look over the Roman ruins,” he said. “There’s a spot where you get a fantastic view of Monte Carlo. Especially at night, with all the lights.”
“You’ve been here before, then?”
“A few times. We were here in the summer, filming.”
We? Bleakly, I thought of Brett with Elspeth Vane. She was a woman suited to the glittering life of the Cote d’Azur. Monte Carlo, Nice, St. Tropez ... World sophisticates both of them, she and Brett.
Suddenly I became conscious of what I must look like at this moment. My clothes, straight out of a suitcase, dragged on in a rush. No time to do my hair properly or make up my face.
I opened the car door and put a foot to the ground. “Didn’t you say something about breakfast?”
“Yes, sure. Let’s go and find someplace.”
A couple of minutes’ walk through the streets of the ancient town, and we came to an attractive little cafe with gay orange awnings. Table and chairs were set out in front. But at this altitude, at this time of day, it was too cold to sit in the open, so we went inside. Brett ordered coffee and croissants from the incredibly handsome, dark young waiter, who looked Italian rather than French.
While we waited, Brett said musingly, “God knows where that pair are going to turn up next. There are places dotted all over Europe just as eligible as Palma and Nice.”
My mind was still occupied with thinking about Elspeth—Elspeth and Brett. I said stupidly, “What do you mean by eligible?”
“Smart enough—fancy enough. It’s the grand style he’s been going for, isn’t it? Staying at the ritziest hotels he can find.”
I focused my attention. “Yes, that’s what I can’t understand. It’s so completely unlike Alexis to be ostentatious.”
“Men change, Gail. Or perhaps Alexis was like that underneath all the time.” He shot me a tentative look. “It could be Belle’s price, you know—living it up in the millionaires’ playgrounds.”
“Belle’s price?”
Brett drew his thumbnail across the starched checked tablecloth, making a thin rasping sound.
“Gail, you’ve only seen Belle Forsyth as the capable, devoted nurse-companion to Madeleine. Being a man, I was shown a different side of her character. When Belle took her hair down she could be devastatingly sexy. It was enough to make any man—”
“Not Alexis.” But a faint note of doubt had crept into my voice.
“Any man,” Brett insisted. “If it was not for the fact that Belle isn’t my type, who knows?”
“Then what is your type?” I threw back at him and instantly regretted it.
When Brett looked at me it seemed that a shutter had dropped across his eyes. “You know the answer to that, Gail, don’t you?”
Yes, I knew. We were back to Elspeth again.
Brett inquired if he could use the telephone. He was shown through a curtained archway at the back, and I heard a door close.
There was a sleepy hush upon the place. The only other customer, a fat, elderly man in a black beret, was studying his newspaper with deep concentration. Was he perhaps reading about Alexis? I wondered. Behind the counter, the handsome waiter was polishing glasses and kept glancing up at his reflection in a mirror. A huge, sleek tortoise-shell cat lay in a patch of sunlight by the window, lazily licking a paw. He eyed me impassively for a moment, yawned, stretched, and settled at once to sleep.
In less than five minutes Brett was back.
“All fixed, Gail. We’re to take some food for ourselves, though—the Shackletons aren’t prepared for unexpected guests at this time of year, and it’s a long way to the shops.”
“Brett, are you sure they don’t mind?”
He shook his head. “I’ve known Bill Shackleton ever since we were at Cambridge together. He writes scripts for television nowadays, and Harriet writes those madly successful children’s books. They’re a great pair.”
“What did you tell them about us? How much did you explain?”
“What about leaving the organizing to me, Gail? Make a big effort and trust me for once.”
I flushed. “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
Brett smiled at me with maddening condescension. “Drink up your coffee like a good girl, and we’ll go and find an epicene and buy some food. I don’t know how long we’re going to be holed up, but we’d better take enough for a couple of days or so.”
“How about letting Dougal know where we’ll be?”
He gave me a withering look. “Bread and cheese, eggs, ham, some fruit and coffee—how’s that? And wine.”
“I suppose so.”
The thought of food didn’t interest me at all. I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of maybe two days’ complete inaction. But I had to go along with Brett’s plan, because I knew that without him I’d get nowhere. Without Brett’s help, I wouldn’t have a hope of catching up with Alexis.