The Scarlatti Inheritance (30 page)

Masterson and Leacock.

Both were on the Zurich list. Each owned one of the fourteen properties in Switzerland.

No surprise. They tied Bertholde to the Zurich contingent.

No surprise at all. Just comforting—in a professional way—to know that another piece of the puzzle fitted.

As he finished his coffee, an unfamiliar man in a Savoy waistcoat approached the field accountant.

“Front desk, sir. I have two messages.”

Canfield was alarmed. He reached for the notes extended to him. “You could have had me paged.”

“Both parties requested that we not do that, sir.”

“I see. Thank you.”

The first message was from Derek. “Imperative you contact me.”

The second was from Elizabeth Scarlatti. “Please come to my suite at two thirty. It is most urgent. I cannot see you before then.”

Canfield lit one of his thin cigars and settled back into the curved Savoy dining chair. Derek could wait. The Englishman probably had gotten word of Benjamin Reynolds’s new arrangement with the British government and was either furious or apologetic. He’d postpone Derek.

Scarlatti, on the other hand, had made a decision. If Janet was right, she was folding up. Forgetting for the moment his own potential loss, he could never explain her reversal to Reynolds, or Glover, or anyone else at Group Twenty, for that matter. He had spent thousands
of dollars on the premise that he had Elizabeth’s cooperation.

The field accountant thought about the old woman’s visitor, the fourth marquis of Chatellerault, veteran of the Matterhorn and the Jungfrau, Jacques Louis Bertholde. Why had he broken into the Scarlatti suite the way he had? Was it simply the locked door and the knowledge that it would remain locked? Was it to terrify Elizabeth? Or was he searching for something?

Just as he and Derek had searched in the darkness two floors above.

Once confronting her what could Bertholde have said to bend her will? What could he possibly say that would frighten Elizabeth Scarlatti?

He could promise the death of her son if he were still alive. That might do it … But would it? Her son had betrayed her. Betrayed the Scarlatti Industries. Canfield had the unnatural feeling that Elizabeth would rather see her son dead than let him continue that betrayal.

Yet now she was retreating.

Again Canfield felt the inadequacy he had begun to feel aboard the
Calpurnia.
An assignment conceived of as theft had been complicated by extraordinary occurrences, extraordinary people.

He forced his mind back to Elizabeth Scarlatti. He was convinced she could “not see” him before two thirty because she was completing arrangements to return home.

Well, he had a shock in store for her. He knew she had had an early-morning visitor. And he had the Bertholde dossier.

The dossier she could refuse. The Alpine rig would be irresistible.

“I wrote in my note that I couldn’t see you before two thirty! Would you please respect my wishes?”

“It can’t wait. Let me in quickly!”

She opened the door in disgust, leaving it ajar as she walked back into the center of the room. Canfield closed it, loudly inserting the bolt. He spoke before she turned around to face him. “I’ve read the dossier. I know now why your visitor didn’t have to open the door.”

It was as if a pistol had been fired in front of her ancient
face. The old woman turned and sprang her back forward and arched her neck. Had she been thirty years younger, she would have leapt upon him in fury. She spoke with an intensity he had never heard from her before.

“You unconscionable bastard! You’re a liar! A thief! Liar! Liar! I’ll have you spend the rest of your life in prison!”

“That’s very good. Attack for attack! You’ve pulled it before but not this time. Derek was with me. We found the rig. An Alpine rig, he called it—which your visitor let down the side of the building.”

The old woman lurched toward him, unsteady on her feet.

“For Christ’s sake, relax! I’m on your side.” He held her thin shoulders.

“You’ve got to buy him! Oh, my God! You’ve got to buy him! Get him here!”

“Why? Buy him how? Who?”

“Derek. How long have you known? Mr. Canfield, I ask you in the name of all that’s holy, how long have you known?”

“Since about five o’clock this morning.”

“Then he’s talked to others! Oh, my God, he’s talked to others!” She was beside herself, and Canfield was now frightened for her.

“I’m sure he has. But only to his immediate superiors and I gather he’s pretty superior himself. What did you expect?”

The old woman tried with what strength she had left to regain control of herself. “You may have caused the murder of my entire family. If you’ve done that, I’ll see you dead!”

“That’s pretty strong language! You’d better tell me why!”

“I’ll tell you nothing until you get Derek on that telephone.”

The field accountant crossed the room to the telephone and gave the operator Derek’s number. He talked urgently, quietly, for a few moments and turned to the old woman. “He’s going in to a meeting in twenty minutes. He has a full report and they’ll expect him to read it.”

The old woman walked rapidly toward Canfield. “Give me that phone!”

He handed her both the stand and the receiver. “Mr. Derek! Elizabeth Scarlatti. Whatever this meeting is, do not go to it! I am not in the habit of begging, sir, but I implore you, do not go! Please, please do not speak to a soul about last night! If you do, you will be responsible for the deaths of a number of innocent people. I can say no more now.… Yes, yes, whatever you like.… I’ll see you, of course. In an hour. Thank you. Thank you!”

She replaced the receiver on the hook and slowly, with great relief, put the telephone back on the table. She looked at the field accountant. “Thank God!”

The field accountant watched her as she spoke. He began to walk toward her. “Sweet mother of Jesus! I’m beginning to see. That crazy Alpine thing. The acrobatics at two in the morning. It wasn’t just to scare you half to death—it was necessary!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Since early this morning I’ve thought it was Bertholde! And he’d come to you like that to scare hell out of you! But it didn’t make sense. It wouldn’t accomplish anything. He could have stopped you in the lobby, in a store, in the dining room. It had to be someone who couldn’t do that! Someone who couldn’t take a chance anywhere!”

“You’re babbling! You’re incoherent!”

“Sure, you’re willing to call the whole thing off! Why not? You did what you’d set out to do! You found him! You’ve found your missing son, haven’t you?”

“That’s a lie!”

“Oh, no, it’s not. It’s so clear I should have thought of it last night. The whole damn thing was so weird I looked for insane explanations. I thought it was persuasion by terror. It’s been used a lot these past few years. But it wasn’t that at all! It was our celebrated war hero come back to the land of the living! Ulster Stewart Scarlett! The only one who couldn’t risk stopping you outside. The only one who couldn’t take a chance that you might not unlatch that bolt!”

“Conjecture! I deny it!”

“Deny all you like! Now I’m giving you a choice! Derek will be here in less than an hour. Either we straighten this out between us before then, or I walk out that door
and cable my office that in my highly regarded professional opinion we’ve found Ulster Scarlett! And, incidentally, I’m taking your daughter-in-law with me.”

The old woman suddenly lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. She walked haltingly toward the field accountant. “If you have any feeling whatsoever for that girl, you’ll do as I ask. If you don’t, she’ll be killed.”

It was now the field accountant’s turn to raise his voice. It was no longer the shout of the angry debater, it was the roar of an angry man. “Don’t you make any pronouncements to me! Don’t you or your rotten bastard son make any threats to me! You may buy part of me, but you don’t buy all of me! You tell him I’ll kill him if he touches that girl!”

Pleading without shame, Elizabeth Scarlatti touched his arm. He withdrew it swiftly from her. “It’s not my threat. Please, in the name of God, listen to me. Try to understand.… I’m helpless. And I can not be helped!”

The field accountant saw the tears roll down her wrinkled cheeks. Her skin was white and the hollows of her eyes were black with exhaustion. He thought, quite out of context with the moment, that he was looking at a tear-stained corpse. His anger ebbed.

“Nobody has to be helpless. Don’t let anybody tell you that.”

“You love her, don’t you?”

“Yes. And because I do, you don’t have to be quite so afraid. I’m a committed public servant. But far more committed to us than the public.”

“Your confidence doesn’t change the situation.”

“You won’t know that until you tell me what it is.”

“You leave me no choice? No alternative?”

“None.”

“Then God have mercy on you. You have an awesome responsibility. You are responsible for our lives.”

She told him.

And Matthew Canfield knew exactly what he would do. It was time to confront the Marquis de Bertholde.

Fifty-seven miles southeast of London is the seaside resort of Ramsgate. Near the town, on a field set back from the main road, stood a wooden shack no more than twenty feet by twenty. It had two small windows and in the early-morning mist a dim light could be seen shining through them. About a hundred yards to the north was a larger building—once a barn—five times the size of the shack. It was now a hangar for two small monoplanes. One of them was being wheeled out by three men in gray overalls.

Inside the shack, the man with the shaved head sat at a table drinking black coffee and munching bread. The reddish splotch above his right eye was sore and inflamed and he touched it continually.

He read the message in front of him and looked up at the bearer, a man in a chauffeur’s uniform. The contents of the message infuriated him.

“The marquis has gone too far. The instructions from Munich were clear. The Rawlinses were
not
to be killed in the States. They were to be brought to Zurich! They were to be killed in
Zurich!
”

“There’s no need for concern. Their deaths, the man and his wife, were engineered above suspicion. The marquis wanted you to know that. It has appeared as an accident.”

“To whom? God damn it, to
whom?
Go shag, all of you! Munich doesn’t want risks! In
Zurich
there would have been no risk!” Ulster Scarlett rose from the chair and walked to the small window overlooking the field.
His plane was nearly ready. He hoped his fury would subside before takeoff. He disliked flying when he was angry. He made mistakes in the air when he was angry. It had been happening more frequently as the pressures mounted.

God damn Bertholde! Certainly Rawlins had to be killed. In his panic over Cartwright’s discovery Rawlins had ordered his son-in-law to kill Elizabeth Scarlatti. A massive error! It’s funny, he reflected. He no longer thought of the old woman as his mother. Simply Elizabeth Scarlatti.… But to have Rawlins murdered three thousand miles away was insanity! How could they know who was asking questions? And how easily might the order be traced back to Bertholde?

“Regardless of what happened …” Labishe started to speak.

“What?” Scarlett turned from the window. He had made up his mind.

“The marquis also wanted you to know that regardless of what happened to Boothroyd, all associations with him are buried with the Rawlinses.”

“Not quite, Labishe. Not quite.” Scarlett spoke softly but his voice was hard. “The Marquis de Bertholde was ordered … commanded by Munich to have the Rawlinses brought to Switzerland. He disobeyed. That was most unfortunate.”

“Pardon, monsieur?”

Scarlett reached for his flying jacket, which hung over the back of his chair. Again he spoke quietly, simply. Two words.

“Kill him.”

“Monsieur!”

“Kill him! Kill the Marquis de Bertholde and do it today!”

“Monsieur! I do not believe what I hear!”

“Listen to me! I don’t give explanations! By the time I reach Munich I want a cable waiting for me telling me that stupid son of a bitch is dead!… And, Labishe! Do it so there’s no mistake who killed him. You! We can’t have any investigations now!… Get back here to the field. We’ll fly you out of the country.”

“Monsieur! I have been with
le marquis
for fifteen years! He has been good to me!… I can not …”

“You what?”

“Monsieur …” The Frenchman sunk to one knee. “Do not ask me.…”

“I don’t ask. I command! Munich commands!”

The foyer on the third floor of Bertholde et Fils was enormous. In the rear was an impressive set of white Louis XIV doors that obviously led to the sanctum sanctorum of the Marquis de Bertholde. On the right side were six brown leather armchairs in a semicircle—the sort that might be found in the study of a wealthy country squire—with a thick rectangular coffee table placed in front. On the table were neatly stacked piles of chic magazines—chic socially and chic industrially. On the left side of the room was a large white desk trimmed in gold. Behind the desk sat a most attractive brunet with spit curls silhouetted against her forehead. All this Canfield took in with his second impression. It took him several moments to get over his first.

Opening the elevator door, he had been visually overpowered by the color scheme of the walls.

They were magenta red and sweeping from the ceiling moldings were arcs of black velvet.

Good Christ! he said to himself. I’m in a hallway thirty-five hundred miles away!

Seated in the chairs beside one another were two middle-aged gentlemen in Savile Row clothes reading magazines. Standing off to the right was a man in a chauffeur’s uniform, his hat off, his hands clasped behind his back.

Canfield approached the desk. The spit-curled secretary greeted him before he could speak. “Mr. Canfield?”

“Yes.”