The Scarlatti Inheritance (32 page)

On the third-floor landing, which was now completely filled with Bertholde employees in varying stages of hysteria, Canfield could see Basil one floor below pulling himself downward by the railing. Canfield began yelling.

“Get clear! Get clear! The doctor’s waiting! I’ve got to bring him up! Get clear!”

To some degree the ruse worked and he made swifter headway. By the time he reached the first-floor lobby, Basil was no longer in sight. Canfield ran out the front entrance onto the sidewalk. There was Basil about half a block south, limping in the middle of Vauxhall Road, waving, trying to hail a taxi. The knees of his trousers were coated with mud where he had fallen in his haste.

Shouts were still coming from various windows of Bertholde et Fils, drawing dozens of pedestrians to the foot of the company’s steps.

Canfield walked against the crowd toward the limping figure.

A taxi stopped and Basil grabbed for the door handle.
As he pulled the door open and climbed in, Canfield reached the side of the cab and prevented the Englishman from pulling the door shut. He moved in alongside Basil, pushing him sideway to make room.

“I say! What are you doing?” Basil was frightened but he did not raise his voice. The driver kept turning his head back and forth from the street in front of him to the gathering crowds receding behind him. Basil did not wish to draw additional attention.

Before Basil could think further, the American grasped the Englishman’s right hand and pulled the coat above his wrist. He twisted Basil’s arm revealing the red and black cuff link.

“Zurich, Basil!” the field accountant whispered.

“What are you talking about?”

“You damn fool, I’m with you! Or I will be, if they let you live!”

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Basil babbled.

The American released Basil’s hand by throwing it downward. He looked straight ahead as if ignoring the Englishman. “You’re an idiot. You realize that, don’t you?”

“I don’t know you, sir! I don’t know you!” The Englishman was near collapse.

“Then we’d better change that. I may be all you have left.”

“Now see here. I had nothing to do with it! I was in the waiting room with you. I had nothing to do with it!”

“Of course, you didn’t. It’s pretty damned obvious that it was the chauffeur. But a number of people are going to want to know why you ran. Maybe you were just making sure the job was done.”

“That’s preposterous!”

“Then why did you run away?”

“I … I …”

“Let’s not talk now. Where can we go where we’ll be seen for about ten or fifteen minutes? I don’t want it to look as though we dropped out of sight.”

“My club … I suppose.”

“Give him the address!”

“What the devil do you mean I was there?” James Derek shouted into the phone. “I’ve been here at the Savoy since midafternoon!… Yes, of course I am. Since three or thereabouts.… No, she’s here with me.” The Englishman suddenly caught his breath. When he spoke again his words were barely audible, drawn out in disbelief. “Good Lord!… How horrible.… Yes. Yes, I heard you.”

Elizabeth Scarlatti sat across the room on the Victorian couch, absorbed in the Bertholde dossier. At the sound of Derek’s voice she looked up at the Englishman. He was staring at her. He spoke again into the phone.

“Yes. He left here roughly at three thirty. With Ferguson, from our office. They were to meet Mrs. Scarlett at Tippin’s and he was to proceed from there to Bertholde’s.… I don’t know. His instructions were that she remain in Ferguson’s custody until he returned. Ferguson’s to call in.… I see. For heaven’s sake, keep me posted. I’ll phone you if there’re any developments here.”

He replaced the telephone receiver on the hook and remained at the table. “Bertholde’s been killed.”

“Good God! Where’s my daughter?”

“With our man. She’s all right. He reported in an hour ago.”

“Canfield! Where’s Canfield?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Is he all right?”

“How can I answer that if I don’t know where he is?
We can presume he’s functioning. He identified himself as me and left the scene!”

“How did it happen?”

“He was garroted. A wire around his throat.”

“Oh!” Elizabeth suddenly, vividly recalled the picture of Matthew Canfield thrusting the cord in her face after Boothroyd’s attempt on her life aboard the
Calpurnia.
“If he killed him, he must have had a reason!”

“What?”

“For killing him. He must have had to!”

“That’s most interesting.”

“What is?”

“That you would think Canfield had to kill him.”

“It couldn’t have happened otherwise! He’s no killer.”

“He didn’t kill Bertholde either, if it’s any comfort to you.”

Her relief was visible. “Do they know who did?”

“They believe so. Apparently it was Bertholde’s chauffeur.”

“That’s odd.”

“Very. The man’s been with him for years.”

“Perhaps Canfield’s gone after him.”

“Not likely. The man left some ten to twelve minutes before they found Bertholde.”

James Derek walked from the telephone table toward Elizabeth. It was obvious that he was upset. “In the light of what’s just happened, I’d like to ask you a question. But, of course, you needn’t answer.…”

“What is it?”

“I’d like to know how—or perhaps why—Mr. Canfield received a full clearance from the British Foreign Office.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Come, madame. If you don’t care to answer, I respect that. But since my name’s been used in the killing of an influential man, I believe I’m entitled to something more than another … falsehood.”

“Another … falsehood? That’s insulting, Mr. Derek.”

“Is it? And are you and Mr. Canfield still setting elaborate traps for embassy personnel who returned to the United States over four months ago?”

“Oh.” Elizabeth sat down again on the couch. She was not concerned with the Englishman’s complaint; she only wished Canfield was there to answer him. What she
was concerned with was the agent’s reference to the Foreign Office. “An unfortunate necessity.”

“Most unfortunate.… I gather, then, that you don’t care to answer.”

“On the contrary, I have answered you.” Elizabeth looked up at the Britisher. “I wish you’d explain. What is full clearance?”

“Extraordinary cooperation from the highest echelons of our government. And such decisions from the British Foreign Office are generally reserved for major political crises! Not a stocks-and-bonds struggle between squabbling millionaires.… Or, if you’ll pardon me, a private citizen’s personal tragedy.”

Elizabeth Scarlatti froze.

What James Derek had just said was abhorrent to the head of Scarlatti. More than anything else she had to operate outside the boundaries of “highest echelon” scrutiny. For the sake of Scarlatti itself. Canfield’s minor agency had seemed heaven-sent. Her arrangement with him gave her the facilities of official cooperation without answering to anyone of consequence. If she had wanted it otherwise, she would have commanded any number of men in either or both the legislative and executive branches of the United States government. It would not have been difficult.… Now, it seemed, Canfield’s relatively unimportant department had grown in significance. Or perhaps her son had involved himself in an undertaking far more ominous than she had conceived.

Was the answer in the Bertholde dossier? Elizabeth wondered. “I gather from your tone that this full clearance is a new development.”

“I was informed this morning.”

Then it must be in the Bertholde dossier, thought Elizabeth.… Of course it was! Even Matthew Canfield had begun to perceive it! Only his perception had been based solely on the recognition of certain words, names. He had marked the pages. Elizabeth picked up the file.

“Following the war, the Ruhr Valley interests repurchased.… Offices in Stuttgart and Tassing …”

Tassing.

Germany.

An economic crisis.

The Weimar Republic.

A series of economic crises! A major and constant political crisis!

“…  partners in the importing firm are Mr. Sydney Masterson and Mr. Harold Leacock.…”

Masterson and Leacock. Zurich!

Tassing!

“Does the city of Tassing mean anything to you?”

“It’s not a city. It is an outlying district of Munich. In Bavaria. Why do you ask?”

“My son spent a good deal of time and money there … among other places. Does it have any special meaning for you?”

“Munich?”

“I suppose so.”

“Hotbed of radicalism. Breeding ground of malcontents.”

“Malcontents?… Communists?”

“Hardly. They’d shoot a Red on sight. Or a Jew. Call themselves
Schutzstaffel.
Go around clubbing people. Consider themselves a race apart from the rest of the world.”

A race apart.

Oh, God!

Elizabeth looked at the dossier in her hands. Slowly she replaced it in the manila envelope and stood up. Without saving a word to the Englishman, she crossed to her bedroom door and let herself in. She closed the door behind her.

James Derek remained in the center of the room. He didn’t understand.

Inside her bedroom Elizabeth went to her writing desk where papers were scattered across the top. She sorted them out until she found the Zurich list.

She read each name carefully.

One might say that the Zurich list was a cross-section of the most powerful men in the Western hemisphere.

Elizabeth put the list down and reached for a leather-bound notebook in which she kept telephone numbers and addresses. She thumbed to the letter
O.

Ogilvie and Storm, Ltd., Publishers, Bayswater Road, London.

She would phone Thomas Ogilvie and have him send her whatever information he could unearth on the
Schutzstaffel.

She knew something about it already. She remembered reading its political name was the National Socialists and they were led by a man named Adolph Hitler.

The man’s name was Basil Hawkwood, and Canfield quickly pictured the trademark
hawkwood
—small letter
h
—as it appeared on a variety of leather goods. Hawkwood Leather was one of the largest firms in England, only a short distance behind Mark Cross.

The nervous Basil led Canfield into the huge reading room of his club, Knights. They chose two chairs by the Knightsbridge window, where there were no other members within earshot.

Basil’s fear caused him to stutter, and when his words came, the phrases tumbled over one another. He assumed, because he wanted to assume, that the young man facing him would help him.

Canfield sat back in the comfortable chair and listened with incredulity to Hawkwood’s story.

The chairman of Hawkwood Leather had been sending shipment after shipment of “damaged” leather goods to a little-known firm in Munich. For over a year the directors of Hawkwood accepted the losses on the basis of the “damaged” classification. Now, however, they had ordered a complete report on the excess malfunctions of the plants. The Hawkwood heir was trapped. There could be no more shipments for an indeterminate time.

He pleaded with Matthew Canfield to understand. He begged the young man to report and confirm his loyalty, but the boots, the belts, the holsters would have to come from someone else.

“Why do you wear the cuff links?” asked Canfield.

“I wore them today to remind Bertholde of my contribution. He presented them to me himself.… You’re not wearing yours.”

“My contribution doesn’t call for them.”

“Well, damn it, mine does! I haven’t stinted in the past and I won’t in the future!” Hawkwood leaned forward in his chair. “The present circumstances don’t change my feelings! You can report that. God damn Jews! Radicals! Bolsheviks! All over Europe! A conspiracy to destroy every decent principle good Christian men have lived by for centuries! They’ll murder us in our beds! Rape our daughters! Pollute the races! I’ve never doubted it! I’ll help again. You have my word! Soon there’ll be millions at our disposal!”

Matthew Canfield suddenly felt sick. What in God’s name had he done? He got out of the chair and his legs felt weak.

“I’ll report what you said, Mr. Hawkwood.”

“Good fellow. Knew you’d understand.”

“I’m beginning to.” He walked rapidly away from the Englishman toward the arch to the outer hallway.