together in New York. He’d obviously been told to spend without worrying
about surns in order to establish their relationship-he’d suggested as much-
and they’d both laughed because what they were doing on government funds
was, in essence, spelling out the truth…. She would have been happy to pay
the freight herself. She’d paid for others, and none were as dear to her as
Matthew Canfield. No one would ever be so dear to her. He didn’t belong to
her world. He preferred a simpler, less cosmopolitan one, she thought. But
Janet Saxon Scarlett knew she would adjust if it meant keeping him.
Perhaps, when it was all over, if it was ever to be an over, they would
find a way. There had to be a way for this good, rough, gentle young man
who was a better man than any she had ever known before. She loved him very
much and she found herself concerned for him. That was remarkable for Janet
Saxon Scarlett.
When she had returned the night before at seven o’clock, escorted by
Derek’s man Ferguson, she found Canfield alone in Elizabeth’s sitting room.
He’d seemed tense, edgy, even angry, and she didn’t know why. Hed made
feeble excuses for his temper and finally, without warning, he had ushered
her out of the suite and out of the hotel.
They had eaten at a small restaurant in Soho. They both drank heavily, his
fear infecting her. Yet he would not tell her what bothered him.
They’d returned -to his room with a bottle of whiskey. Alone, in the quiet,
-they had made love. Janet knew he was a man holding on to some mythical
rope, afraid to let go for fear of plunging downward.
As she watched him. at the writing desk, she also instinctively knew the
tzuth-the unwanted tru-th-which she had suspected since that terrible
moment more than a day ago when he had said to her, “Janet I’m afraid we’ve
had a visitor.”
That visitor had been her husband.
She raised herself on her elbow. “Matthewr
“OIL … Morning, Wend.”
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“Matthew … are you afraid of him?”
Canfield’s stomach muscles grew taut
She knew.
But, of course, she knew.
“I don’t think I will be … when I find him.”
“fbat’s always the way, isn’t it? We’re afraid of someone or something we
don’t know or catet find.” Jances eyes began to ache.
‘7hat’s what Elizabeth said.”
She sat up, pulling the blanket over her shoulders, and leaned back against
the headrest. She felt cold, and the ache in her eyes intensified. “Did she
tell your,
‘Finally. . . . She didn’t want to. I didn’t give her an alternative… She
had to.”
Janet stared straight ahead, at nothing “I knew It,” she said quietly. “I’m
frightened.”
“Of course you am. But you don’t have to be. He can’t touch YOU. 9.
‘Vhy are you so sum? I don’t think you were so sure last night.” She was
not aware of it, but bar hands began to shake.
“No, I wasn!t… But only because he existed at all. . . . The unholy
specter alive and breathing. . . . No matter how much we expected it, it
was a shock- But the suifs up now.” He reached for his pencil and made a
note on the paper.
Suddenly Janet Scarlett Bung herself down across the bed. “Oh, God, God,
Godl” Hex head was buried in the pillow.
At fiM Canfield did not recognize the appeal in her voice, for she did not
scream. or shout out and his concentration was ok_)m notes. Her muffled cry
was one of agony. not desperatim
“Jan.” he began casually. “Janetr The field accountant threw down his
pencil and rus1wd to the bed. “Janetl … Honey, please dont. Don% please.
Janeir He cradled bw in his a=% doing his bw to comfort her. And then
slowly his attention was drawn to her eyes.
The tears were streaming down her face, uncontrollably, yet she did not cry
out but only Sasped for breath. Vlbw disturbed him were her eyeL
Instead of blinking from the flow of tems, they remained wide open, as if
she were in a trance. A trance of borror.
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He spoke her name over and over again.
“Jana Janet. Janet. Jana . . .”
She did not respond. She seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the fear
which controlled her. She began to moan, at first quietly, then louder and
louder.
“Janed Stop itl Stop itl Darling, stop itl”
She did not hew him.
Instead she tried to push him away, to disengage herself from him Her naked
body writhed on the bed; her arms lashed out, striking him.
He tightened his grip, afraid for a moment that he might hurt her.
Suddenly she stopped. She threw her head back and spoke in a choked voice
he had not heard before.
“God damn you to heUl … God damn you to heURI”
She drew out the word “bell” until it became a scream.
Her legs spread slowly, reluctantly, apart On top Of the sheet
In that same choked, guttural voice she whispered, -You pigl PigI Pigl
Pigl”
canfield watched her in dread. She was assuming a position of sexual
intercourse., steeling herself against the terror which had enveloped her
and which would progressively worsen.
“Janet, for God’s sake, Jan… DoWtl Don’tl No one’s going to touch youl
Please, darlingl”
The girl laughed horridly, hysterically-
-You’re the card, Uisterl You’re the God damn lack of . . . jack of . . .”
She quickly crossed her legs, one emphatically on top of the other, and
brought her hands up to oover her breasts. “Leave me alone, Ulsterl Please,
dear God, uisterl Leave me alonel . . . You’re gojng to icave me aioner,
she curled herself up like an infant and began to sob.
canfield reached down to the foot of the bed and pulled the blanket over
Janet
He was afraid.
That she could suddenly, without warning, reduce herself to Scarlett’s
unwilling whore was frightening.
But it was there, and he had to accept it.
She needed help. Perhaps far more help than be oould provide, He gently
stroked her hair and lay dawn beside her.
Her sobs evened off into deep breathing as she closed
277
her eyes. He hoped she was sleeping but he could not be sum At any rate, he
would let her rest. It would give him the time to figure out a way to tell
her everything she had to know.
The next four weeks would be terrible for her.
For the three of them.
But now there was an element which had been absent before, and Canfield was
grateful for it. He knew he shouldn’t have been, for it was against every
professional instinct he had.
It was hate. His own personal hate.
Ulster Stewart Scarlett was no longer the quarry in an international hunt.
He was now the man Matthew Canfield intended to kill.
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CHAPTER 37
Ulster Scarlett watched the flushed, angry face of Adolf Hitler. He reaaed
that in spite of his fury, Hitler had a capacity for control that was
nothing short of miraculous. But then the man himself was a miracle. A
historic man-miracle who would take them into the finest world imaginable on
earth.
The three of them-Hess, Goebbels, and Kroegerhad driven through the night
from Montbiliard to Munich, where Hitler and Ludendorff awaited a report of
their meeting with Rheinhart. If the conference had gone well, Ludendorff’s
plan was to be set in motion. Each faction of the Reichstag possessing any
serious following would be alerted that a coalition was imminent. Promises
would be made, threats implied. As the Reichstag’s sole member of the
National Socialist party and its candidate for president the previous year,
Ludendorff would be listened to. He was the soldier-thinker. He was slowly
regaining the stature he had thrown away in defeat at the Meuse-Argonne.
Simultaneously and in twelve different cities anti-Versailles
demonstrations would be staged, where the police had been paid handsomely
not to interfere. Hitler was to travel to Oldenburg, in the center of the
northwest Prussian territory, where the great military estates were slowly
going to seed-massive remembrances of past glorie& A huge rally would be
mounted and it was planned that Rheinhart himself would make an appearance.
Rheinhart was enough to give credence to the party’s military support. It
was more than enough; it would be a
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momentary climax fitting their current progress. Rheinhart’s recognition of
Hitler would leave no room for doubt as to where the generals were leaning.
Ludendorff looked upon the act as a political neces~ sity. Hitler looked
upon it as a political coup. The Austrian lance corporal was never unmoved
by the anticipation of Junker approval. He knew that it was his destiny to
have it-demand itl-but nonetheless it filled him with pride, which was why
he was furious now.
The ugly little Goebbels bad just finished telling Ludendorff and Hitler of