“You’ll lock the doors and windows?”
“Seven stories off the ground? Of course, if you like.”
“I do,” said Canfield.
CHAPTER 27
“It’s heaven!” shrieked Janet over the din of voices at Claridge’s. “Come on, Matthew, don’t look so sour!”
“I’m not sour. I just can’t hear you.”
“Yes, you are. You didn’t like it. Let me enjoy it.”
“I will. I will! Do you want to dance?”
“No. You hate dancing. I just want to watch.”
“No charge. Watch. It’s good whiskey.”
“Good what?”
“I said whiskey.”
“No, thanks. See? I can be good. You’re two up on me, you know.”
“I may be sixty up on you if this keeps going.”
“What, darling?”
“I said I may be sixty when we get out of here.”
“Oh, stop it. Have fun!”
Canfield looked at the girl opposite him and felt once again a surge of joy. There was no other word but joy. She was a delight that filled him with pleasure, with warmth. Her eyes held the immediacy of commitment that only a lover can know. Yet Canfield tried so hard to disassociate, to isolate, to objectify, and found that he could not do it.
“I love you very much,” he said.
She heard him through the music, the laughter, the undercurrent hum of movement.
“I know.” She looked at him and her eyes had the hint of tears. “We love each other. Isn’t that remarkable?”
“Do you want to dance, now?”
The girl threw back her head ever so slightly. “Oh, Matthew! My dear, sweet Matthew. No, darling. You don’t have to dance.”
“Now, look, I will.”
She clasped his hand. “We’ll dance by ourselves, all by ourselves later.”
Matthew Canfield made up his mind that he would have this woman for the rest of his life.
But he was a professional and his thoughts turned for a moment to the old woman at the Savoy.
Elizabeth Wyckham Scarlatti at that moment got out of her bed and into a dressing gown. She had been reading the Manchester Guardian. Turning its thin pages, she heard two sharp metallic clicks accompanied by a muffled sound of movement from the living room. She was not at first startled by the noise; she had bolted the hallway door and presumed that her daughter-in-law was fumbling with a key unable to enter because of the latch. After all, it was two o’clock in the morning and the girl should have returned by now. She called out.
“Just one minute, my dear. I’m up.”
She had left a table lamp on and the fringe of the shade rippled as she passed it causing a flickering of minute shadows on the wall.
She reached the door and began to unbolt the latch. Remembering the field accountant, she halted momentarily.
“That is you, isn’t it, my dear?”
There was no reply.
She automatically snapped back the bolt.
“Janet? Mr. Canfield? Is that you?”
Silence.
Fear gripped Elizabeth. She had heard the sound; age had not impaired her hearing.
Perhaps she had confused the clicking with the unfamiliar rustling of the thin English newspaper. That was not unreasonable and although she tried to believe it, she could not.
Was there someone else in the room?
At the thought she felt pain in the pit of her stomach.
As she turned to go back into the bedroom, she saw that one of the large french windows was partially opened, no more than one or two inches but enough to cause the silk draperies to sway slightly from the incoming breeze.
In her confusion she tried to recall whether she had closed it before. She thought she had, but it had been an uninterested motion because she hadn’t taken Canfield seriously. Why should she? They were seven stories high.
Of course, she hadn’t closed it. Or, if she had, she hadn’t secured the catch and it had slipped off. Nothing at all unusual. She crossed to the window and pushed it closed.
And then she heard it.
“Hello, Mother.”
Out of the shadows from the far end of the room walked a large man dressed in black. His head was shaved and he was deeply tanned.
For several seconds she did not recognize him. The light from the one table lamp was dim and the figure remained at the end of the room. As she became adjusted to the light and the object of her gaze, she realized why the man appeared to be a stranger. The face had changed. The shining black hair was shaved off; the nose was altered, smaller and the nostrils wider apart; the ears were different, flatter against the head; even the eyes—where before there had been a Neapolitan droop to the lids—these eyes were wide, as if no lids existed. There were reddish splotches around the mouth and forehead. It was not a face. It was the mask of a face. It was striking. It was monstrous. And it was her son.