from above, there was the whirring sound of a motor, the vibration constant, bass-toned. Bray lunged across the unconscious body of the nurse, into the shadows of the stairs, and raised the revolver.
From around the curve of the first landing an old woman came into view.
She was sitting in the ornate chair of an automatic lift, her frail hands holding the sculptured pole that shot up from the guard rail. She was encased in a highcollared dressing gown of dark gray, and her once-delicate face was ravaged, her voice strained.
"I imagine that's one way to leash the bitch-hound, or comer the wolf-in-season, but if your objective is sexual, young man, I question your taste." Mrs. Joshua Appleton, 111, was drunk. From the looks of her, she had been drunk for years.
"My only objective, Mrs. Appleton, is to see you. This woman tried to stop me; this is her gun, not mine. I'm an experienced intelligence officer employed by the United States government and fully prepared to show you my identification. In light of what happened I am checking for concealed weapons. I would do the same under like circum- stances anywhere, anytime." With those words, he had begun, and with an equanimity born of prolonged alcoholsaturation, the old woman accepted his presence.
Scofield carried the nurse into a small drawing room, bound her hands and feet in slipknots made from the torn nylon of her hose, saving the elastic waistband for a gagging brace, pulled between her teeth, tied firmly to the back of her neck. He closed the door and returned to Mrs.
Appleton in the living room. She had poured herself a brandy; Bray looked at the odd-shaped glass and at the decanters that were placed on tables about the room. The glass was so thick that it could not be broken easily, and the crystal decanters were positioned so that a new drink was accessible -every seven to ten feet in all directions. It was strange therapy for one so obviously an alcoholic.
"I'm afraid," said Scofield, pausing at the door, "that when your nurse regains consciousness I'm going to give her a lecture about the indiscriminate display of firearms. She has an odd way of protecting you, Mrs. Appleton." "Very odd, young man." The old woman raised her glass and cautiously sat down in an antimacassared armchair. "But since she tried and failed so miserably, why don't you tell me what she was protecting me from? Why did you come to see mer, "May I sit down?" "By all means." Bray began his ploy. "As I mentioned, I'm an intelligence officer attached to the Department of State. A few days ago we received a report that implicates your son -through his father-with an organization in Europe known for years to be involved in international crime." "In what?" Mrs. Appleton giggled. "Really, you're very amusing." "Forgive me, but there's nothing amusing about it." "What are you talking about?" Scofield described a group of men not unlike the Matarese council, watching the old woman closely for signs that she had made a connection.
He was not even sure he had penetrated her clouded mind; he had to appeal to the mother, not the woman. "The information from Europe was sent and received under the highest security classification. To the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one in Washington that's read it, and further, I'm convinced I can contain it. You see, Mrs. Appleton, I think it's very important for this country, that none of this touch the Senator." "Young man," interrupted the old woman. "Nothing can touch the Senator, don't you know that? My son will be the President of the United States.
He'll be elected in the fall. Everybody says so. Everybody wants him." "Then I haven't been clear, Mrs. Appleton. The report from Europe is devastating and I need information. Before your son ran for office, how closely did he work with his father in the Appleton business ventures?
Did he travel frequently to Europe with your husband? Who were his closest friends here in Boston? That's terribly important. People that only you might know, men and women who came to see him at Appleton Hall." "'Appleton Hall... way up on Appleton Hill,"' broke in the old woman in a strained, whispered sing-song of no discernible tune. "'With the grandest view of Boston... and ever will be still.' Joshua the First wrote that over a hundred years ago. It's not very good, but they say he picked out the notes on