“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 holstered 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?”
“Gevena rules, lady. Prisoners are allowed packages from home.”
CHAPTER 43
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 D4 and D5 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.