The Scarlatti Inheritance(45)

The banker led the old woman rapidly through the bank. Past the cages, past the tellers, past the office doors to the rear of the building. They took the elevator down to the huge Waterman cellars. Out of the elevator they turned to the left and approached the east wing.

The walls were gray, the surfaces smooth, and the thick cement encased both sides of the gleaming steel bars. Above the portal was a simple inscription.

EAST WINO

SCARLATTI

Elizabeth thought—once again—that the effect was tomblike. Beyond the bars was a narrow hallway lit from the ceiling with bright bulbs encased in wire mesh. Except for the doorways, two on either side, the corridor looked like a passageway to some pharaoh’s final resting place in the center of an awesome pyramid. The door at the end led to the vault of the Scarlatti Industries itself.

Everything.

Giovanni.

The two doors on either side led to cubicles for the wife and the three children. Chancellor’s and Ulster’s were on the left. Elizabeth’s and Roland’s on the right. Elizabeth was next to Giovanni.

Elizabeth had never had Roland’s consolidated. She knew that ultimately the courts would take care of that. It was her one gesture of sentiment to her lost son. It was proper. Roland, too, was part of the empire.

The uniformed guard nodded—funereally—and opened the steel-barred door.

Elizabeth stood in front of the entrance to the first cubicle on the left. The nameplate on the center of the metal door read, Ulster Stewart Scarlatti.

The guard opened this door and Elizabeth entered the small room. “You will relock the door and wait outside.”

“Naturally.”

She was alone in the cell-like enclosure. She reflected that only once before had she been in Ulster’s cubicle. It had been with Giovanni. Years, histories ago.… He had coaxed her downtown to the bank without telling her of his arrangements for the east wing vaults. He had been so proud. He had taken her through the five rooms as a guide might usher tourists through a museum. He had elaborated on the intricacies of the various trusts. She remembered how he slapped the cabinets as if they were prize-winning cattle that would someday provide enormous herds.

He had been right.

The room hadn’t changed. It might have been yesterday.

On one side, built into the wall, were the deposit boxes holding the industrials—the stocks, the certificates of ownership in hundreds of corporations. The wherewithal for day-to-day living. Ulster’s first trust fund. On two other walls stood file cabinets, seven on each side. Each file drawer was marked with a year date—changed each year by the Waterman executors. Each drawer contained hundreds of open-faced securities and each cabinet had six drawers.

Securities to be drawn on for the next eighty-four years.

The second trust. Earmarked for Scarlatti expansion.

Elizabeth studied the cards on the cabinets.

1926. 1927. 1928. 1929. 1930. 1931.

These were listed on the first cabinet.

She saw that there was a monk’s stool pushed several feet away from the cabinet to the right. Whoever had used it last had been seated between the first and second file. She looked at the index cards on the adjacent cabinet.

1932. 1933. 1934. 1935. 1936. 1937.

She rreached down and pulled the stool in front of the first cabinet and sat down. She looked at the bottom file drawer.

1926.

She opened it.

The year was divided by the twelve months, each month separated by a small index tab. Before each tab was a thin metal carton with two miniature cleats joined by a single wire submerged in wax. On the face of the wax—branded—were the initials W.T. in old English lettering.

The year 1926 was intact. None of the thin metal cartons had been opened. Which meant that Ulster had not complied with the bank’s request for investment instructions. At the end of December the executors would take the responsibility themselves and, no doubt, consult Elizabeth as they had always done in the past with Ulster’s fund.

She pulled out the year 1927.

This, too, was untouched. None of the wax crests had been broken.

Elizabeth was about to close the file on 1927 when she stopped. Her eyes caught sight of a blur in the wax. A tiny, slight blemish that would have gone unnoticed had not a person’s attention been on the crests.

The T. of the W.T. was ragged and slanted downward on the month of August. The same was true for September, October, November, and December.

She pulled out the August carton and shook it. Then she ripped the wire apart and the wax crest cracked and fell away.

The carton was empty.

She replaced it and drew out the remaining months of 1927.

All empty.

She replaced the cartons and opened the file for 1928. Every thin carton had the T. of the wax crest ragged and slanting downward.