And, of course, it had to happen.
Unbelievable good fortune leads to ebullience, and ebullience is no mate for secrecy.
Two or three began to talk. Then four or five. Then a dozen. But no more than that.… The price.
Phone calls were made, almost none from offices, nearly all from the quiet seclusion of libraries or dens. Most were made at night under the soft light of desk lamps with good pre-Volstead whiskey an arm’s length away.
In the highest economic circles, there was a rumor that something most unusual was happening at Scarlatti.
It was just enough. Elizabeth knew it would be just enough. After all, the price.… And the rumors reached the men in Zurich.
Matthew Canfield stretched out across the seats in his own compartment, his legs propped over his single suitcase, his feet resting on the cushions facing him. He, too, looked out the window at the approaching city of Geneva. He had just finished one of his thin cigars and the smoke rested in suspended layers above him in the still air of the small room. He contemplated opening a window, but he was too depressed to move.
It had been two weeks to the day since he had granted Elizabeth Scarlatti her reprieve of one month. Fourteen days of chaos made painful by the knowledge of his own uselessness. More than uselessness, more akin to personal futility. He could do nothing, and nothing was expected of him. Elizabeth hadn’t wanted him to “work closely” with her. She didn’t want anyone to work with her—closely or otherwise. She soloed. She soared alone, a crusty, patrician eagle sweeping the infinite meadows of her own particular heaven.
His most demanding chore was the purchase of office supplies such as reams of paper, pencils, notebooks, and endless boxes of paper clips.
Even the publisher Thomas Ogilvie had refused to see him, obviously so instructed by Elizabeth.
Canfield had been dismissed as he was being dismissed by Elizabeth. Even Janet treated him with a degree of aloofness, always apologizing for her manner but by apologizing, acknowledging it. He began to realize what had happened. He was the whore now. He had sold himself, his favors taken and paid for. They had very little use for him now. They knew he could be had again as one knows a whore can be had.
He understood so much more completely what Janet had felt.
Would it be finished with Janet? Could it ever be finished with her? He told himself no. She told him the same. She asked him to be strong enough for both of them, but was she fooling herself and letting him pay for it?
He began to wonder if he was capable of judgment. He had been idle and the rot inside of him frightened him. What had he done? Could he undo it? He was operating in a world he couldn’t come to grips with.
Except Janet. She didn’t belong to that world either. She belonged to him. She had to!
The whistle on the train’s roof screeched twice and the huge metal-against-metal slabs on the wheels began to grind. The train was entering the Geneva station, and Canfield heard Elizabeth’s rapid knocking on the wall between their compartments. The knocking annoyed him. It sounded like an impatient master of the house rapping for a servant.
Which is exactly what it was.
“I can manage this one, you take the other two. Let the redcaps handle the rest.”
Dutifully Canfield instructed the porter, gathered up the two bags, and followed Elizabeth off the train.
Because he had to juggle the two suitcases in the small exit area, he was several feet behind Elizabeth as they stepped off the metal stairway and started down the concrete platform to the center of the station. Because of those two suitcases they were alive one minute later.
At first it was only a speck of dark movement in the corner of his eye. Then it was the gasps of several travelers behind him. Then the screams. And then he saw it.
Bearing down from the right was a massive freight dolly with a huge steel slab across the front used to scoop up heavy crates. The metal plate was about four feet off the ground and had the appearance of a giant, ugly blade.
Canfield jumped forward as the rushing monster came directly at them. He threw his right arm around her waist and pushed-pulled her out of the way of the mammoth steel plate. It crashed into the side of the train less than a foot from both their bodies.
Many in the crowd were hysterical. No one could be sure whether anyone had been injured or killed. Porters came running. The shouts and screams echoed throughout the platform.
Elizabeth, breathless, spoke into Canfield’s ear. “The suitcases! Do you have the suitcases?”
Canfield found to his amazement that he still held one in his left hand. It was pressed between Elizabeth’s back and the train. He had dropped the suitcase in his right hand.
“I’ve got one. I let the other go.”