Chapter Thirty

The telephone awoke him.

‘Matthew?’

‘Yes, Jan?’ He held the phone and the blood drained from his arm and it hurt.

‘I’m in the lobby. I told Mother Scarlatti I had some shopping to do.’

The field accountant looked at his watch. It was eleven thirty. He had needed the sleep. ‘What happened?’

‘I’ve never seen her like this, Matthew. She’s frightened.’

‘That’s new. Did she bring up the Sheffield business?’

‘No, I had to. She brushed it aside and said the situation had changed.’

‘Nothing else? Just that?’

‘Yes… There was something else. She said she was going to talk with you this afternoon. She says there are problems back in New York that have to be attended to. I think she’s going to tell you that she’s decided to leave England and go home.’

‘That’s impossible! What did she say exactly?’

‘She was vague. Just that Chancellor was a fool and that it was senseless throwing away time on a wild-goose chase.’

‘She doesn’t believe that!’

‘I know she doesn’t. She wasn’t convincing either. But she means it. What are you going to do?’

‘Take her by surprise, I hope. Stay out shopping for at least two hours, will you?’

They made plans for a late lunch and said good-bye. Thirty minutes later the field accountant walked across the Savoy lobby into the grill and ordered breakfast. It was no time to go without food. Without energy.

He carried the Bertholde file with him. He promised himself that he’d read through it, or most of it, at the table. He opened it and placed it to the left of his plate and started at the top of the first page.

Jacques Louis Aumont Bertholde, fourth marquis of Chatellerault.

It was a dossier like so many other dossiers on the very wealthy. Exhaustive details about the family lineage. The positions and titles held by each member for several generations in business, government, and society—all impressive sounding, all meaningless to anyone else. The Bertholde holdings—enormous—mainly, as Elizabeth Scarlatti had said, within British territories. The specific education of the subject in question and his subsequent rise in the world of commerce. His clubs—all very correct. His hobbies—automobiles, horse breeding, dogs—also correct. The sports he excelled in—polo, sailing, the Matterhorn and the Jungfrau—not only correct, but colorful, fitting. And finally the character estimates elicited from his contemporaries. The most interesting part and yet the part many professionals disregarded. The flattering contributions were generally supplied by friends or associates hoping to gain. The unflattering, by enemies or competitors with a wish to undermine.

Canfield withdrew a pencil and made two notations in the dossier.

The first was on page 18, paragraph 5.

No particular reason other than the fact that it seemed out of place—unattractive—and it contained the name of a city Canfield recalled was on Ulster Scarlett’s European itinerary.

The Bertholde family had extensive interests in the Ruhr Valley, which were sold to the German Ministry of Finance several weeks before the assassination at Sarajevo. The Bertholde offices in Stuttgart and Tassing were closed. The sale caused considerable comment in French business circles and the Bertholde family was criticized by the States General and in numerous newspaper editorials. No collusion accused, however, due to explanation that the German Finance Ministry was paying exorbitant prices. Explanation proved out. Following the war, the Ruhr Valley interests repurchased from the Weimar government. Offices in Stuttgart and Tassing reopened.

The second, on page 23, paragraph 2, referred to one of Bertholde’s more recently formed corporations and included the following information.

The Marquis de Bertholde’s partners in the importing firm are Mr. Sydney Masterson and Mr. Harold Leacock—

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 cannot 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.