and sales value - but three columns. This third column was an across-the-board cut, which guaranteed the buyer a minor fortune with each transaction. Each signified a mandate to purchase that could not be refused. It was the highest level of finance, returned through the complexities of banking to the fundamental basis of economic incentive: Profit.
And Elizabeth counted on one last factor. It was the reverse of her instructions but that, too, was calculated.
In her sealed orders sent across the Atlantic was the emphatic stipulation that every contact made - to complete the task teams of administrators had to work twelve-hour shifts night and day - was to be carried out in the utmost secrecy and only with those whose authority extended to great financial commitments. The guaranteed gains absolved all from charges of irresponsibility. Each would emerge a hero to himself or to his economic constituency. But the price was consummate security until the act was done. The rewards matched the price. Millionaires, merchant princes, and bankers in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Palm Beach found themselves quartered in conference rooms with their dignified counterparts from one of New York's most prestigious law firms. The tones were hushed and the looks knowing. Financial killings were being made. Signatures were affixed.
And, of course, it had to happen.
Unbelievable good fortune leads to ebullience, and ebullience is no mate for secrecy.
Two or three began to talk. Then four or five. Then a dozen. But no more than that - The price.
Phone calls were made, almost none from offices, nearly all from the quiet seclusion of libraries or dens. Most were made at night under the soft light of desk lamps with good pre-Volstead whiskey an arm's length away.
In the highest economic circles, there was a rumor that something most unusual was happening at Scarlatti.
It was just enough. Elizabeth knew it would be just enough.
After all, the price - And the rumors reached the men in Zurich.
Matthew Canfield stretched out across the seats in his own compartment, his legs propped over his single suitcase, his feet resting on the cushions facing him. He, too, looked out the window at the approaching city of Geneva. He had just finished one of his thin cigars and the smoke rested in suspended layers above him in the still air of the small room. He contemplated opening a window, but he was too depressed to move.
It had been two weeks to the day since he had granted Elizabeth Scarlatti her reprieve of one month. Fourteen days of chaos made painful by the knowledge of his own uselessness. More than uselessness, more akin to personal futility. He could do nothing, and nothing was expected of him. Elizabeth hadn't wanted him to 'work closely' with her. She didn't want anyone to work with her - closely or otherwise. She soloed. She soared alone, a crusty, patrician eagle sweeping the infinite meadows of her own particular heaven.
His most demanding chore was the purchase of office supplies such as reams of paper, pencils, notebooks, and endless boxes of paper clips.
Even the publisher Thomas Ogilvie had refused to see him, obviously so instructed by Elizabeth.
Canfield had been dismissed as he was being dismissed by Elizabeth. Even Janet treated him with a degree of aloofness, always apologizing for her manner but by apologizing, acknowledging it. He began to realize what had happened. He was the whore now. He had sold himself, his favors taken and paid for. They had very little use for him now. They knew he could be had again as one knows a whore can be had.
He understood so much more completely what Janet had felt.
Would it be finished with Janet? Could it ever be finished with her? He told himself no. She told him the same. She asked him to be strong enough for both of them, but was she fooling herself and letting him pay for it?
He began to wonder if he was capable of judgment. He had been idle and the rot inside of him frightened him. What had he done? Could he undo it? He was operating in a world he couldn't come to grips with.
Except Janet. She didn't belong to that world either. She belonged to him. She had to!
The whistle on the train's roof screeched twice and the huge metal-against-metal slabs on the wheels began to grind. The train was entering the Geneva station, and Canfield heard Elizabeth's rapid knocking on the wall between their compartments. The knocking annoyed him. It sounded like