The Scarlatti Inheritance (22 page)

She opened the door and Canfield stood there with only the thought of the impending conversation keeping him from being sick. He closed the door and Elizabeth Scarlatti saw the state of his discomfort. As always, she knew the sequence of priorities under pressure.

“Use my bathroom, Mr. Canfield. It’s in here. Straighten yourself up and then we’ll talk.”

Charles Conaway Boothroyd stuffed two pillows under the blanket of his bed. He picked up the rope and snapped the lines in a lasso loop. The crackle of the fibers
was sweet music to him. He placed his wife’s silk stocking in his pocket and silently left his cabin. Because he was on A deck, starboard side, he had only to walk around the bow promenade to reach his destination. He ascertained the pitch and the roll of the ship in the rough seas and quickly determined the precise moment of side roll for a human body to reach the water below with the minimum of structural interference. Boothroyd was nothing if not a thorough professional. They would all soon learn his worth.

Canfield came out of Elizabeth Scarlatti’s toilet feeling very much relieved. She stared at him from an easy chair several feet on the far side of the bed, pointing the revolver directly at him.

“If I sit down, will you put that damn thing away?”

“Probably not. But sit down and we’ll talk about it.”

Canfield sat on the bed and swung his legs over so that he faced her. The old woman cocked the hammer of her pistol.

“You spoke of something at the door, Mr. Canfield, which is the only reason this pistol hasn’t been fired. Would you care to carry on?”

“Yes. The first thing I can think of saying is that I’m not …”

Canfield froze.

The lock in the outer room was being opened. The field accountant held up his hand to the old woman and she immediately, instinctively, handed him the pistol.

Swiftly Canfield took her hand and gently but firmly placed her on the bed. The look in his eyes instructed her and she obeyed.

She stretched out on the bed with only the table lamp illuminating her while Canfield backed into the shadows behind the open bedroom door. He signaled her to close her eyes, a command he did not really expect her to carry out, but she did. Elizabeth let her head fall to the left while the newspaper lay several inches from her right hand. She looked as though she had fallen asleep while reading.

The stateroom door was rapidly opened and closed.

Canfield pressed his back against the wall and gripped
the small pistol tightly in his hand. Through the overlapping steel lip of the door’s inside border was a two-inch space that let Canfield look out. It struck him that the open space gave the intruder the same advantage, only Canfield was in shadow and, he hoped, unexpected.

And then the visitor was revealed and Canfield found himself involuntarily swallowing, partially from amazement, partially from fear.

The man was huge, several inches taller than Canfield, with immense chest and shoulders. He wore a black sweater, black gloves, and over his entire head was a translucent filmy cloth, silk, perhaps, which gave the giant an eerie, inhuman appearance and completely blurred his face.

The intruder passed through the bedroom door and stood at the foot of the bed barely three feet in front of Canfield. He seemed to be appraising the old woman while removing a thin rope from his trousers pocket.

He started toward the left side of the bed, hunching his body forward.

Canfield sprang forward, bringing his pistol down on the man’s head as hard as he could. The downward impact of the blow caused an immediate break in the skin and a spurt of blood spread through the silk head covering. The intruder fell forward, breaking his fall with his hands, and whirled around to face Canfield. The man was stunned but only for seconds.

“You!” It was not an exclamation, but a damning recognition. “You son of a bitch!”

Canfield’s memory mistly raced back, abstracting times and events, and yet he hadn’t the remotest idea who this massive creature was. That he should know him was obvious; that he didn’t possibly dangerous.

Madame Scarlatti crouched against the headboard of her bed observing the scene in fear but without panic. Instead she was angry because it was a situation she could not possibly control. “I’ll phone for the ship’s police,” she said quietly.

“No!” Canfield’s command was harsh. “Don’t touch that phone! Please!”

“You must be insane, young man!”

“You want to make a deal, buddy?”

The voice, too, was vaguely familiar. The field accountant trained his pistol on the man’s head.

“No deal. Just take off your Halloween mask.”

The man slowly raised both arms.

“No, buddy! One hand. Sit on the other. With the palm up!”

“Smart guy.” The intruder lowered one arm.

“Mr. Canfield, I really must insist! This man broke into my cabin. God knows he was probably going to rob or kill me. Not you. I must phone for the proper authorities!”

Canfield didn’t quite know how to make the old woman understand. He was not the heroic type, and the thought of formal protection was inviting. But would it be protection? And even if it were, this hulk at his feet was the only connection, or possible connection, he or anyone in Group Twenty had with the missing Ulster Scarlett. Canfield realized that if the ship’s authorities were called in, the intruder would simply be sacrificed as a thief. It was possible that the man was a thief, but Canfield doubted that strongly.

Sitting at the accountant’s feet, the masked Charles Boothroyd came to the identical conclusion regarding his future. The prospect of failure coupled with jail began to trigger an uncontrollable desperation.

Canfield spoke quietly to the old woman. “I’d like to point out that this man did not break in. He unlocked the door, which presumes he was given a key.”

“That’s right! I was! You don’t want to do anything stupid, do you, buddy? Let’s make a deal. I’ll pay you fifty times what you make selling baseball mitts! How about it?”

Canfield looked sharply down at the man. This was a new and disturbing note. Was his cover known? The sudden ache in Canfield’s stomach came with the realization that there might well be two sacrificial goats in the stateroom.

“Take that God damn cloth off your head!”

“Mr. Canfield, thousands of passengers have traveled this ship. A key wouldn’t be that difficult. I must insist …”

The giant intruder’s right hand lashed out at Canfield’s foot. Canfield fired into the man’s shoulder as he was pulled forward. It was a small-caliber revolver and the shot was not loud.

The masked stranger’s hand spastically released Canfield’s
ankle as he clutched his shoulder where the bullet was lodged. Canfield rose quickly and kicked the man with all his strength in the general area of the head. The toe of his patent-leather shoe caught the man on the side of the neck and ripped the skin beneath the stocking mask. Still the man lunged toward Canfield, hurling himself in a football cross-block at Canfield’s midsection. Canfield fired again; this time the bullet entered the man’s huge flank. Canfield pressed himself against the stateroom wall as the man fell against his shins, writhing in agony. The bone and muscle tissue in the path of the bullet had been shattered.

Canfield reached down to pull off the silk face covering, now drenched with blood, when the giant, on his knees, suddenly lashed out with his left arm pinning the field accountant back against the wall. Canfield pistol-whipped the man about the head, simultaneously trying to remove the steellike forearm. As he pulled upward on the man’s wrist, the black sweater ripped revealing the sleeve of a white shirt. On the cuff was a large cuff link diagonally striped in red and black.

Briefly, Canfield stopped his assault, trying to assimilate his new knowledge. The creature, bloodied, wounded, was grunting in pain and desperation. But Canfield knew him and he was extraordinarily confused. While trying to steady his right hand, he aimed his revolver carefully at the man’s kneecap. It was not easy; the strong arm was pressing into his upper groin with the power of a large piston. As he was about to fire, the intruder lurched upward, arching his back and heaving his frame against the smaller man. Canfield pulled the trigger, more as a reaction than intent. The bullet pierced the upper area of the stomach.

Charles Boothroyd fell again.

Matthew Canfield looked over at the old woman who was reaching for the bedside phone. He jumped over the man and forcibly took the instrument from her. He replaced the ear cup in its cradle. “Please! I know what I’m doing!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Please! Believe me!”

“Good God! Look out!”

Canfield whirled, narrowly missing having his spine
crushed by the lurching, wounded Boothroyd, who had entwined his fingers into a single hammerlike weapon.

The man toppled on the end of the bed and rolled off. Canfield pulled the old woman away and leveled his pistol at the assailant.

“I don’t know how you do it, but if you don’t stop, the next shot goes right into your forehead. That’s a marksman’s promise, buddy!”

Canfield reflected that he was the only member of the training group to fail the small-arms target course twice in succession.

Lying on the floor, his vision impaired by the pain as well as the bloody silk covering his face, Charles Boothroyd knew there was next to nothing left. His breathing was erratic; blood was spilling into his windpipe. There was only one hope—to get to his cabin and reach his wife. She’d know what to do. She’d pay the ship’s doctor a fortune to make him well. And somehow
they
would understand. No man could take this kind of punishment and be questioned.

With enormous effort he began to rise. He muttered incoherently as he steadied himself on the mattress.

“Don’t try to stand, friend. Just answer a question,” said Canfield.

“What … What? Quit.…”

“Where’s Scarlett?” Canfield felt he was working against time. The man would collapse any second.

“Don’t know …”

“Is he alive?”

“Who …”

“You know damn well who! Scarlett! Her son!”

With his last resource of strength, Boothroyd accomplished the seemingly impossible. Clutching the mattress, he staggered backward as if about to collapse. His movements pulled the heavy pad partially off the bed, loosening the hold of the blankets, and as Canfield stepped forward, Boothroyd suddenly lifted the mattress free of the bed and flung it at the field accountant. As the mattress rose in the air, Boothroyd rushed against it with his full weight. Canfield fired wildly into the ceiling as he and the old woman went down under the impact. Boothroyd gave a last push, crushing the two against the wall and the floor, letting his push spring him back onto his feet.
He turned, hardly able to see, and weaved out of the room. Once he reached the other stateroom he pulled off the stocking, opened the door, and rushed out.

Elizabeth Scarlatti moaned in pain, groping for her ankle. Canfield pushed against the mattress, and as it fell off, he tried to help the old woman to her feet.

“I think my ankle or some part of my foot is broken.”

Canfield wanted only to go after Boothroyd but he couldn’t leave the old woman like this. Too, if he did leave her, she’d be right back on the phone and at this juncture, that would never do. “I’ll carry you to the bed.”

“For God’s sake put the mattress back first. I’m brittle!”

Canfield was torn between taking off his belt, binding the old woman’s hands and running after Boothroyd, and carrying out her instructions. The former would be foolish—she’d scream bloody murder; he replaced the mattress and gently lifted her onto the bed.

“How does it feel?”

“Ghastly.” She winced as he placed the pillows behind her.

“I guess I’d better call the ship’s doctor.” However, Canfield made no motion toward the phone. He tried to find the words to convince her to let him have his way.

“There’s plenty of time for that. You want to go after that man, don’t you?”

Canfield looked at her harshly. “Yes.”

“Why? Do you think he has something to do with my son?”

“Every second I spend explaining lessens the possibility of our ever finding out.”

“How do I know you’ll be dealing in my interest? You didn’t want me to phone for help when we certainly needed it. You nearly got us both killed, as a matter of fact. I think I deserve some explanation.”

“There isn’t time now. Please, trust me.”

“Why should I?”

Canfield’s eye caught sight of the rope dropped by Boothroyd. “Among other reasons too lengthy to go into, if I hadn’t been here, you would have been killed.” He pointed at the thin cord on the floor. “If you think that rope was meant to tie your hands with, remind me to explain the advantages of garroting with an elasticized cord as opposed to a piece of clothesline. Your wrists
could wriggle out of this.” He picked the cord up and thrust it in front of her. “Not your throat!”

She looked at him closely. “Who are you? Whom do you work for?”

Canfield remembered the purpose of his visit—to tell part of the truth. He had decided to say he was employed by a private firm interested in Ulster Scarlett—a magazine or some sort of publication. Under the present circumstances, that was obviously foolish. Boothroyd was no thief; he was a killer on assignment. Elizabeth Scarlatti was marked for assassination. She was no part of a conspiracy. Canfield needed all the resources available to him. “I’m a representative of the United States government.”

“Oh, my God! That ass, Senator Brownlee! I had no idea!”

“Neither does he, I assure you. Without knowing it, he got us started, but that’s as far as he goes.”

“And now I presume all Washington is playing detective and not informing me!”

“If ten people in all Washington know about it, I’d be surprised. How’s your ankle?”

“It will survive, as I shall under the circumstances.”

“If I call the doctor, will you make up some story about falling? Just to give me time. That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll do you one better, Mr. Canfield. I’ll let you go now. We can call a doctor later if it’s necessary.” She opened the drawer in the bedside table and handed him the stateroom key.