The Scarletti Inheritance - By Robert Ludlum Page 0,53
prior, Matthew Canfield.'
He looked at her closely, noting that the anticipated response was positive but not necessarily liking the fact. 'If that's the case, he was a bigger fool than I thought he was.'
She looked into his eyes as one scans a letter, trying to read, not between the lines, but instead, beyond the words.
'You're a very attractive man.' And then she rose quickly, a bit unsteadily, and put her drink down on the small table in front of the settee. 'I haven't had dinner and if I don't eat soon I'll be incoherent. I don't like being incoherent.'
'Let me take you out.'
'And have you bleed all over some poor unsuspecting waiter?'
'No more blood.' Canfield held out his hand. 'I would like to have dinner with you.'
'Yes, I'm sure you would.' She picked up her drink and walked with ever so slight a list to the left side of the fireplace. 'Do you know what I was about to do?'
'No.' He remained seated, slouched deeply into the sofa.
'I was about to ask you to leave.'
Canfield began to protest.
'No, wait. I wanted to be all by myself and nibble something all by myself and perhaps that's not such a good idea.'
'I think that's a terrible idea.'
'So I won't.'
'Good.'
'But I don't want to go out. Will you have, as they say, potluck with me here?'
'Won't that be a lot of trouble?'
Janet Scarlett yanked at a pull cord, which hung on the wall at the side of the mantel. 'Only for the housekeeper. And she hasn't been overworked in the least since my husband - left.'
The housekeeper answered her summons with such speed that the field accountant wondered if she were listening at the door. She was about the homeliest woman Matthew Canfield had ever seen. Her hands were huge.
'Yes, madame? We did not expect you home this evening. You did tell us you were dining with Madame Scarlatti.'
'It seems I've changed my mind, doesn't it, Hannah? Mr. Canfield and I will dine here. I've told him potluck, so serve us whatever luck the pot holds.'
'Very well, madame.'
Her accent had a trace of Middle Europe, perhaps Swiss or German, thought Canfield. Her jowled face framed by her pulled-back gray hair should have been friendly. But it wasn't. It was somehow hard, masculine.
Nevertheless, she made sure the cook prepared an excellent meal.
'When that old bitch wants something, she makes them all quiver and quake until she gets it,' said Janet. They had gone back to the living room and sat sipping brandy on the pillow-fluffed sofa, their shoulders touching.
'That's natural. From everything I've heard, she runs the whole show. They've got to cater to her. I know I would.'
'My husband never thought so,' the girl said quietly. 'She'd get furious with him.'
Canfield pretended disinterest. 'Really? I never knew there was any trouble between them.'
'Oh, not trouble. Ulster never cared enough about anything or anybody to cause trouble. That's why she'd get so angry. He wouldn't fight. He'd just do what he wanted to. He was the only person she couldn't control and she hated that.'
'She could stop the money, couldn't she?' Canfield asked naively.
'He had his own.'
'God knows that's exasperating. He probably drove her crazy.'
The young wife was looking at the mantel. 'He drove me crazy, too. She's no different.'
'Well, she's his mother...'
'And I'm his wife.' She was now drunk and she stared with hatred at the photographs. 'She has no right caging me up like an animal! Threatening me with stupid gossip! Lies! Millions of lies! My husband's friends, not mine! Though they might as well be mine, they're no God damn better!'
'Ulster's pals were always a little weird, I agree with you there. If they're being louses to you, ignore them. You don't need them.'
Janet laughed. 'That's what I'll do! I'll travel to Paris, Cairo, and wherever the hell else, and take ads in the papers. All you friends of that bastard Ulster Scarlett, I ignore you! Signed, J. Saxon Scarlett, widow. I hope!'
The field accountant pressed his luck. 'She's got information about you from... places like that?'
'Oh. she doesn't miss a trick. You're nobody if the illustrious Madame Scarlatti hasn't got a dossier on you. Didn't you know that?'
And then almost as rapidly as she had flown into rage, she receded into calm reflection. 'But it's not important. Let her go to hell.'
'Why is she going to Europe?'
'Why do you care?'
Canfield shrugged. 'I don't. I just read it in the columns.'