“You unconscionable bastard! You’re a liar! A thief! Liar! Liar! I’ll have you spend the rest of your life in prison!”
“That’s very good. Attack for attack! You’ve pulled it before but not this time. Derek was with me. We found the rig. An Alpine rig, he called it—which your visitor let down the side of the building.”
The old woman lurched toward him, unsteady on her feet.
“For Christ’s sake, relax! I’m on your side.” He held her thin shoulders.
“You’ve got to buy him! Oh, my God! You’ve got to buy him! Get him here!”
“Why? Buy him how? Who?”
“Derek. How long have you known? Mr. Canfield, I ask you in the name of all that’s holy, how long have you known?”
“Since about five o’clock this morning.”
“Then he’s talked to others! Oh, my God, he’s talked to others!” She was beside herself, and Canfield was now frightened for her.
“I’m sure he has. But only to his immediate superiors and I gather he’s pretty superior himself. What did you expect?”
The old woman tried with what strength she had left to regain control of herself. “You may have caused the murder of my entire family. If you’ve done that, I’ll see you dead!”
“That’s pretty strong language! You’d better tell me why!”
“I’ll tell you nothing until you get Derek on that telephone.”
The field accountant crossed the room to the telephone and gave the operator Derek’s number. He talked urgently, quietly, for a few moments and turned to the old woman. “He’s going in to a meeting in twenty minutes. He has a full report and they’ll expect him to read it.”
The old woman walked rapidly toward Canfield. “Give me that phone!”
He handed her both the stand and the receiver. “Mr. Derek! Elizabeth Scarlatti. Whatever this meeting is, do not go to it! I am not in the habit of begging, sir, but I implore you, do not go! Please, please do not speak to a soul about last night! If you do, you will be responsible for the deaths of a number of innocent people. I can say no more now.… Yes, yes, whatever you like.… I’ll see you, of course. In an hour. Thank you. Thank you!”
She replaced the receiver on the hook and slowly, with great relief, put the telephone back on the table. She looked at the field accountant. “Thank God!”
The field accountant watched her as she spoke. He began to walk toward her. “Sweet mother of Jesus! I’m beginning to see. That crazy Alpine thing. The acrobatics at two in the morning. It wasn’t just to scare you half to death—it was necessary!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Since early this morning I’ve thought it was Bertholde! And he’d come to you like that to scare hell out of you! But it didn’t make sense. It wouldn’t accomplish anything. He could have stopped you in the lobby, in a store, in the dining room. It had to be someone who couldn’t do that! Someone who couldn’t take a chance anywhere!”
“You’re babbling! You’re incoherent!”
“Sure, you’re willing to call the whole thing off! Why not? You did what you’d set out to do! You found him! You’ve found your missing son, haven’t you?”
“That’s a lie!”
“Oh, no, it’s not. It’s so clear I should have thought of it last night. The whole damn thing was so weird I looked for insane explanations. I thought it was persuasion by terror. It’s been used a lot these past few years. But it wasn’t that at all! It was our celebrated war hero come back to the land of the living! Ulster Stewart Scarlett! The only one who couldn’t risk stopping you outside. The only one who couldn’t take a chance that you might not unlatch that bolt!”
“Conjecture! I deny it!”
“Deny all you like! Now I’m giving you a choice! Derek will be here in less than an hour. Either we straighten this out between us before then, or I walk out that door and cable my office that in my highly regarded professional opinion we’ve found Ulster Scarlett! And, incidentally, I’m taking your daughter-in-law with me.”
The old woman suddenly lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. She walked haltingly toward the field accountant. “If you have any feeling whatsoever for that girl, you’ll do as I ask. If you don’t, she’ll be killed.”
It was now the field accountant’s turn to raise his voice. It was no longer the shout of the angry debater, it was the roar of an angry man. “Don’t you make any pronouncements to me! Don’t you or your rotten bastard son make any threats to me! You may buy part of me, but you don’t buy all of me! You tell him I’ll kill him if he touches that girl!”