The Scarletti Inheritance

by Ludlum, Robert

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She did not answer him for nearly a minute.

  ‘Mr. Canfield, you have a terrible responsibility facing you.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  She turned and looked at him. Gone was the grandeur, gone the haughty superiority.

  ‘Don’t let them kill me, Mr. Canfield. Don’t let them kill me now. Make them wait till Zurich—After Zurich they can do anything they wish.’

  The Scarletti Inheritance

  Chapter Forty-two

  Elizabeth and Canfield spent three days and nights in their rooms at the Hotel D’Accord. Only once had Canfield gone out—and he had spotted two men following him. They did not try to take him, and it occurred to him that they considered him so secondary to the prime target, Elizabeth, that they dared not risk a call out of the Geneva police, reported to be an alarmingly belligerent force, hostile to those who upset the delicate equilibrium of their neutral city. The experience taught him that the moment they appeared together he could expect an attack no less vicious than the one made on them at the Geneva station. He wished he could send word to Ben Reynolds. But he couldn’t, and he knew it. He had been ordered to stay out of Switzerland. He had withheld every piece of vital information from his reports. Elizabeth had seen to that. Group Twenty knew next to nothing about the immediate situation and the motives of those involved. If he did send an urgent request for assistance, he would have to explain, at least partially, and that explanation would lead to prompt interference by the embassy. Reynolds wouldn’t wait upon legalities. He would have Canfield seized by force and held incommunicado.

  The results were predictable. With him finished, Elizabeth wouldn’t have a chance of reaching Zurich. She’d be killed by Scarlett in Geneva. And the secondary target would then be Janet back in London. She couldn’t stay at the Savoy indefinitely. Derek couldn’t continue his security precautions ad infinitum. She would eventually leave, or Derek would become exasperated and careless. She, too, would be killed. Finally, there was Chancellor Drew, his wife, and seven children. There would be a hundred valid reasons for all to leave the remote Canadian refuge. They’d be massacred. Ulster Stewart Scarlett would win.

  At the thought of Scarlett, Canfield was able to summon up what anger was left in him. It was almost enough to match his fear and depression. Almost.

  He walked into the sitting room Elizabeth had converted into an office. She was writing on the center table.

  ‘Do you remember the housekeeper at your son’s house?’ he said.

  Elizabeth put down her pencil. It was momentary courtesy, not concern. ‘I’ve seen her on the few occasions I’ve visited, yes.’

  ‘Where did she come from?’

  ‘As I recall, Ulster brought her back from Europe. She ran a hunting lodge in… southern Germany.’ Elizabeth looked up at the field accountant. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Years later Canfield would reflect that it was because he had been trying to find the words to tell Elizabeth Scarlatti that Hannah was in Geneva that caused him to do what he did. To physically move from one place to another at that particular instant. To cross between Elizabeth and the window. He would carry the remembrance of it as long as he lived.

  There was a shattering of glass and a sharp, terrible stinging pain in his left shoulder. Actually the pain seemed to come first. The jolt was so powerful that it spun Canfield around, throwing him across the table, scattering papers, and crashing the lamp to the floor. A second and third shot followed, splintering the thick wood around his body and Canfield, in panic, lurched to one side, toppling Elizabeth off her chair onto the floor. The pain in his shoulder was overpowering, and a huge splotch of blood spread across his shirt.

  It was all over in five seconds.

  Elizabeth was crouched against the paneling of the wall. She was at once frightened and grateful. She looked at the field accountant lying in front of her trying to hold his shoulder. She was convinced he had thrown himself over her to protect her from the bullets. He never explained otherwise.

  ‘How badly are you hurt?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It hurts like hell—I’ve never been hit before.

  ‘Never shot before…’ He was finding it difficult to speak. Elizabeth started to move toward him. ‘God damn it! Stay where you are!’ He looked up and saw that he was out of the sight line of the window. They both were. ‘Look, can you reach the phone? Go on the floor. Stay down!… I think I need a doctor—A doctor.’ He passed out.

  Thirty minutes later Canfield awoke. He was on his own bed with the whole upper left part of his chest encased in an uncomfortable bandage. He could barely move. He could see, blurredly to be sure, a number of figures around him. As his eyes came into focus, he saw Elizabeth at the foot of the bed looking down at him. To her right was a man in an overcoat, behind him a uniformed policeman. Bending over him on his left was a balding, stern-faced man in his shirt sleeves, obviously a doctor. He spoke to Canfield. His accent was French.

  ‘Move your left hand, please.’

  Canfield obeyed.

  ‘Your feet, please.’

  Again he complied.

  ‘Can you roll your head?’

  ‘What? Where?’

  ‘Move your head back and forth. Don’t try to be amusing.’ Elizabeth was possibly the most relieved person within twenty miles of the Hotel D’Accord. She even smiled.

  Canfield swung his head back and forth.

  ‘You are not seriously hurt.’ The doctor stood erect.

  ‘You sound disappointed,’ answered the field accountant.

  ‘May I ask him questions. Herr Doktor!’ said the Swiss next to Elizabeth.

  The doctor replied in his broken English. ‘Yes. The bullet passed him through.’

  What one had to do with the other perplexed Canfield, but he had no time to think about it. Elizabeth spoke.

  ‘I’ve explained to this gentleman that you’re merely accompanying me while I conduct business affairs. We’re totally bewildered by what’s happened.’

  ‘I would appreciate this man answering for himself, madame.’

  ‘Damned if I can tell you anything, mister…’ And then Canfield stopped. There was no point in being a fool. He was going to need help. ‘On second thought, maybe I can.’ He looked toward the doctor, who was putting on his suit coat. The Swiss understood.

  ‘Very well. We shall wait.’

  ‘Mr. Canfield, what can you possibly add?’

  ‘Passage to Zurich.’

  Elizabeth understood.

  The doctor left and Canfield found that he could lie on his right side. The Swiss Geheimpolizist walked around to be nearer.

  ‘Sit down, sir,’ said Canfield as the man drew up a chair. ‘What I’m going to tell you will seem foolish to someone like you and me who have to work for our livings.’ The field accountant winked. ‘It’s a private matter—no harm to anyone outside the family, family business, but you can help—Does your man speak English?’

  The Swiss looked briefly at the uniformed policeman. ‘No, monsieur.’

  ‘Good. As I say, you can help. Both the clean record of your fair city… and yourself.’

  The Swiss Geheimpolizist drew up his chair closer. He was delighted.

  The afternoon arrived. They had timed the train schedules to the quarter hour and had telephoned ahead for a limousine and chauffeur. Their train tickets had been purchased by the hotel, clearly spelling out the name of Scarlatti for preferred treatment and the finest accommodations available for the short trip to Zurich. Their luggage was sent downstairs an hour beforehand and deposited by the front entrance. The tags were legibly marked, the train compartments specified, and even the limousine service noted for the Zurich porters. Canfield figured that the lowest IQ in Europe could know the immediate itinerary of Elizabeth Scarlatti if he wished to.

  The ride from the hotel to the station took about twelve minutes. One-half hour before the train for Zurich departed an old woman,
with a heavy black veil, accompanied by a youngish man in a brand-new fedora, his left arm in a white sling, got into a limousine. They were escorted by two members of the Geneva police, who kept their hands on their bolstered pistols.

  No incident occurred, and the two travelers rushed into the station and immediately onto the train.

  As the train left the Geneva platform, another elderly woman accompanied by a youngish man, this one in a Brooks Brothers hat, and also with his left arm in a sling but hidden by a topcoat, left the service entrance of the Hotel D’Accord. The elderly woman was dressed in the uniform of a Red Cross colonel, female division, complete with a garrison cap. The man driving was also a member of the International Red Cross. The two people rushed into the back seat, and the young man closed the door. He immediately took the cellophane off a thin cigar and said to the driver, ‘Let’s go.’

  As the car sped out the narrow driveway, the old woman spoke disparagingly. ‘Really, Mr. Canfield! Must you smoke one of those awful things?’

  ‘Geneva rules lady. Prisoners are allowed packages from home.’

  The Scarletti Inheritance

  Chapter Forty-three

  Twenty-seven miles from Zurich is the town of Menziken. The Geneva train stopped for precisely four minutes, the time allotted for the loading of the railway post, and then proceeded on its inevitable, exact, fated ride up the tracks to its destination.

  Five minutes out of Menziken, compartments 04 and Dj on Pullman car six were broken into simultaneously by two men in masks. Because neither compartment contained any passengers, and both toilet doors were locked, the masked men fired their pistols into the thin panels of the commodes, expecting to find the bodies when they opened the doors.

  They found no one. Nothing.

  As if predetermined, both masked men ran out into the narrow corridor and nearly collided with one another.

  ‘Halt! Stop!’ The shouts came from both ends of the Pullman corridor. The men calling were dressed in the uniforms of the Geneva police.

  The two masked men did not stop. Instead they fired wildly in both directions.

  Their shots were returned and the two men fell.

  They were searched; no identifications were found. The Geneva police were pleased about that. They did not wish to get involved.

  One of the fallen men, however, had a tattoo on his forearm, an insignia, recently given the term of swastika. And a third man, unseen, unmasked, not fallen, was first off the train at Zurich, and hurried to a telephone.

  ‘Here we are at Aarau. You can rest up here for a while. Your clothes are in a flat on the second floor. I believe your car is parked in the rear and the keys are under the left seat.’ Their driver was English and Canfield liked that. The driver hadn’t spoken a word since Geneva. The field accountant withdrew a large bill from his pocket and offered it to the man.

  ‘Hardly necessary, sir,’ said the driver as he waved the bill aside without turning.

  They waited until eight fifteen. It was a dark night with only half a moon shrouded by low clouds. Canfield had tried the car, driving it up and down a country road to get the feel of it, to get used to driving with only his right hand. The gas gauge registered rempli and they were ready.

  More precisely, Elizabeth Scarlatti was ready.

  She was like a gladiator, prepared to bleed or let blood. She was cold but intense. She was a killer.

  And her weapons were paper—infinitely more dangerous than maces or triforks to her adversaries. She was also, as a fine gladiator must be, supremely confident.

  It was more than her last grande geste, it was the culmination of a lifetime. Hers and Giovanni’s. She would not fail him.

  Canfield had studied and restudied the map; he knew the roads he had to take to reach Falke Haus. They would skirt the center of Zurich and head toward Kloten, turning right at the Schlieren fork and follow the central road toward Bulach. One mile to the left on the Winterthurstrasse would be the gates of Falke Haus.

  He had pushed the car up to eighty-five miles an hour, and he had stopped at sixty within the space of fifty feet without causing a dislocation of the seats. The Geneva Geheimpoüzist had done his job well. But then he was well paid. Damn near two years’ wages at the going Swiss rate of Civil Service. And the car was licensed with the numbers no one would stop—for any reason—the Zurich police. How he had done it, Canfield didn’t ask. Elizabeth suggested that it might have been the money.

  ‘Is that all?’ asked Canfield as he led Elizabeth Scarlatti toward the car. He referred to her single briefcase.

  ‘It’s enough,’ said the old woman as she followed him down the path.

  ‘You had a couple of thousand pages, a hundred thousand figures!’

  They’re meaningless now.’ Elizabeth held the briefcase on her lap as Canfield shut the car door.

  ‘Suppose they ask you questions?’ The field accountant inserted the key in the ignition.

  ‘No doubt they will. And if they do, I’ll answer.’ She didn’t wish to talk.

  They drove for twenty minutes and the roads were coming out right. Canfield was pleased with himself. He was a satisfied navigator. Suddenly Elizabeth spoke.

  ‘There is one thing I haven’t told you, nor have you seen fit to bring it up. It’s only fair that I mention it now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s conceivable that neither of us will emerge from this conference alive. Have you considered that?’

  Canfield had, of course, considered it. He had assumed the risk, if that was the justifiable word, since the Boothroyd incident. It had escalated to pronounced danger when he realized that Janet was possibly his for life. He became committed when he knew what her husband had done to her.

  With the bullet through his shoulder, two inches from death, Matthew Canfield in his own way had become a gladiator in much the same manner as Elizabeth. His anger was paramount now.

  ‘You worry about your problems. I’ll worry about mine, okay?’

  ‘Okay… May I say that you’ve become quite dear to me… Oh, stop that little-boy look! Save it for the ladies! I’m hardly one of them! Drive on!’

  On Winterthurstrasse, three-tenths of a mile from Falke Haus there is a stretch of straight road paralleled on both sides by towering pine trees. Matthew Canfield pushed the accelerator down and drove the automobile as fast as it would go. It was five minutes to nine and he was determined that his passenger meet her appointment on time.

  Suddenly in the far-off illumination of the head lamps, a man was signaling. He waved his hands, crisscrossing above his head, standing in the middle of the road. He was violently making the universal sign, stop—emergency. He did not move from the middle of the road in spite of Canfield’s speed.

  ‘Hold on!’ Canfield rushed on, oblivious to the human being in his path.

  As he did so, there was bursts of gunfire from both sides of the road. ‘Get down!’ shouted Canfield. He continued to push the gas pedal, ducking as he did so, bobbing his head, watching the straight road as best he could. There was a piercing scream—pitched in a death note—from the far side of the road. One of the ambushers had been caught in the crossfire.

  They passed the area, pieces of glass and metal scattered all over the seats.

  ‘You okay?’ Canfield had no time for sympathy.

  ‘Yes. I’m all right. How much longer?’

  ‘Not much. If we can make it. They may have gotten a tire.’

  ‘Even if they did, we can still drive?’

  ‘Don’t you worry! I’m not about to stop and ask for a jack!’

  The gates of Falke Haus appeared and Canfield turned sharply into the road. It was a descending grade leading gently into a huge circle in front of an enormous flagstone porch with statuary placed every several feet. The front entrance, a large wooden door, was situated twenty feet beyond the center steps. Canfield could not get near it.

  For there were at least a dozen long, black limousines lined up around the circle.
Chauffeurs stood near them, idly chatting.

  Canfield checked his revolver, placed it in his right-hand pocket, and ordered Elizabeth out of the car, He insisted that she slide across the seat and emerge from his side of the automobile.

  He walked slightly behind her, nodding to the chauffeurs.

  It was one minute after nine when a servant, formally dressed, opened the large wooden door.

  They entered the great hall, a massive tabernacle of architectural indulgence. A second servant, also formally attired, gestured them toward another door. He opened it.

  Inside was the longest table Matthew Canfield thought possible to build. It must have been fifty feet from end to end. And a good six to seven feet wide.

  Seated around the massive table were fifteen or twenty men. All ages, from forty to seventy. All dressed in expensive suits. All looking toward Elizabeth Scarlatti. At the head of the table, half a room away, was an empty chair. It cried out to be filled and Canfield wondered for a moment whether Elizabeth was to fill it. Then he realized that was not so. Her chair was at the foot of the table closest to them.

  Who was to fill the empty chair?

  No matter. There was no chair for him. He would stay by the wall and watch.

  Elizabeth approached the table.

  ‘Good evening, gentlemen. A number of us have met before. The rest of you I know by reputation. I can assure you.’

  The entire complement around the table rose as one body.

  The man to the left of Elizabeth’s chair circled and held it for her.

  She sat down, and the men returned to their seats.

  ‘I thank you—But there seems to be one of us missing.’

  Elizabeth stared at the chair fifty feet away directly in front of her eyes.