The Pond memorandum is dated the fifteenth..'
'I see. I can read.'
'What are you going to do?'
'Do? I can't do a damn thing. There's really nothing here at all. Simply a statement calling our attention to some rumors and the date of an American citizen's entry into Sweden. What else do you see?'
'Assuming there's a basis for the rumors, the connection's obvious and you know it as well as I do! Five will get you ten that if Pond's last communication is right, Scarlett's in Stockholm now.'
'Assuming he's got something to sell.'
'That's what I said.'
'If I remember, somebody's got to say something's stolen before somebody else can yell thief! If we make accusations, all the Scarlattis have to say is they don't know what we're talking about and we're strung up on a high legal tree. And they don't even have to do that. They can simply refuse to dignify us with an answer - that's the way the old lady would put it - and the boys on the Hill will take care of the rest - '
This agency - for those who know about it - is an abomination. The purpose we serve is generally at odds with a few other purposes in this town. We're one of the checks and balances - take your choice. A lot of people in Washington would like to see us out.'
'Then we'd better let the AG's office have the information and let them draw their own conclusions. I guess that's the only thing left.'
Benjamin Reynolds pushed his foot against the floor and his chair swung gently around to face the window. 'We should do that. We will if you insist on it.'
'What does that mean?' asked Glover, addressing his words to the back of his superior's head.
Reynolds shoved his chair around again and looked at his subordinate. 'I think we can do the job better ourselves. Justice, Treasury, even the Bureau. They're accountable to a dozen committees. We're not.'
'We're extending the lines of our authority.'
'I don't think so. As long as I sit in this chair that's pretty much my decision, isn't it?'
'Yes, it is. Why do you want us to take it on?'
'Because there's something diseased in all this. I saw it in the old woman's eyes.'
That's hardly clear logic.'
'It's enough. I saw it.'
'Ben? If anything turns up we think is beyond us, you'll go to the attorney general?'
'My word.'
'You're on. What do we do now?'
Benjamin Reynolds rose from his chair. 'Is Canfield still in Arizona?'
'Phoenix.'
'Get him here.'
Canfield. A complicated man for a complicated assignment. Reynolds did not like him, did not completely trust him. But he would make progress faster than any of the others.
And in the event he decided to sell out, Ben Reynolds would know it. He would spot it somehow. Canfield wasn't that experienced.
If that happened Reynolds would bear down on the field accountant and get to the truth of the Scarlatti business. Canfield was expendable.
Yes, Matthew Canfield was a good choice. If he pursued the Scarlattis on Group Twenty's terms, they could ask no more. If, on the other hand, he found different terms - terms too lucrative to refuse - he would be called in and broken.
Destroyed. But they would know the truth.
Ben Reynolds sat down and wondered at his own cynicism. There was no question about it. The fastest way to solve the mystery behind the Scarlattis was for Matthew Canfield to be a pawn. A pawn who trapped himself.
Chapter Fourteen
It was difficult for Elizabeth to sleep. She repeatedly sat up in bed to write down whatever came into her head. She wrote down facts, conjectures, remote possibilities, even impossibilities. She drew little squares, inserted names, places, dates, and tried to match them with connecting lines. At about three in the morning, she had reduced the series of events to the following:
April, 1925, Ulster and Janet married after only three-week engagement. Why?... Ulster and Janet sailed Cunard Line to Southampton. Reservations made by Ulster in February. How did he know?
May to December, 1925. Approximately eight hundred thousand sent by Waterman Trust to sixteen different banks in England, France, Germany, Austria, Holland, Italy, Spain, and Algeria.
January to March, 1926. Securities valued at approximately 270 million taken from Waterman. Forced sale equivalent between 150 and 200 million. All bills and charges in Ulster's and Janet's name from European accounts settled in full by February, 1926. Month of March, Ulster's behavior considerably altered, withdrawn.
April, 1926. Andrew born. Andrew christened. Ulster disappears.
July, 1926. Confirmation received from fourteen European