The Holcroft Covenant: A Novel

But it was words, not music, that he heard. The rat-tat-tatting beneath an announcer’s voice indicated one of those “all-news” stations. The dial had been changed. He should have known. Nothing is as it was for you.…

  Something being said on the radio caught his attention. He turned quickly in the chair, part of his drink spilling onto his trousers.

  “… police have cordoned off the hotel’s entrances. Our reporter, Richard Dunlop, is on the scene, calling in from our mobile unit. Come in, Richard. What have you learned?”

  There was a burst of static followed by the voice of an excited newscaster.

  “The man’s name was Peter Baldwin, John. He was an Englishman. Arrived yesterday, or at least that’s when he registered at the St. Regis; the police are contacting the airlines for further information. As far as can be determined, he was over here on vacation. There was no listing of a company on the hotel registry card.”

  “When did they discover the body?”

  “About a half hour ago. A maintenance man went up to the room to check the telephone and found Mr. Baldwin sprawled out on the bed. The rumors here are wild and you don’t know what to believe, but the thing that’s stressed is the method of killing. Apparently, it was vicious, brutal. Baldwin was garroted, they said. A wire pulled through his throat. An hysterical maid from the fourth floor was heard screaming to the police that the room vas drenched with—”

  “Was robbery the motive?” interrupted the anchorman, in the interests of taste.

  “We haven’t been able to establish that. The police aren’t talking. I gather they’re waiting for someone from the British consulate to arrive.”

  “Thank you, Richard Dunlop. We’ll stay in touch.… That was Richard Dunlop at the St. Regis Hotel, on Fifty-fifth Street in Manhattan. To repeat, a brutal murder took place at one of New York’s most fashionable hotels this morning. An Englishman named Peter Baldwin …”

  Holcroft shot out of the chair, lurched at the radio, and turned it off. He stood above it, breathing rapidly. He did not want to admit to himself that he had heard what he had just heard. It was not anything he had really considered; it simply was not possible.

  But it was possible. It was real; it had happened. It was death. The maniacs from thirty years ago were not caricatures, not figures from some melodrama. They were vicious killers. And they were deadly serious.

  Peter Baldwin, Esq., had told him to cancel Geneva. Baldwin had interfered with the dream, with the covenant. And now he was dead, brutally killed with a wire through his throat.

  With difficulty, Noel walked back to the chair and sat down. He raised his glass to his lips and drank several long swallows of whiskey; the scotch did nothing for him. The pounding in his chest only accelerated.

  A flare of a match! Across the courtyard, in the window! There she was! Silhouetted beyond the sheer curtains in a wash of dim light stood the blond-haired woman. She was staring across the way, staring at him! He got out of the chair, drawn hypnotically to the window, his face inches from the panes of glass. The woman nodded her head; she was slowly nodding her head! She was telling him something. She was telling him that what he perceived was the truth!

  … The blond woman you’re talking about was Mrs. Palatyne, She died a month ago.

  A dead woman stood silhouetted in a window across the darkness and was sending him a terrible message. Oh, Christ, he was going insane!

  The telephone rang; the bell terrified him. He held his breath and lunged at the phone; he could not let it ring again. It did awful things to the silence.

  “Mr. Holcroft, this is the overseas operator. I have your call to Zurich.…”

  Noel listened in disbelief at the somber, accented voice from Switzerland. The man on the line was the manager of the Zurich branch of La Grande Banque de Genève. A directeur, he said twice, emphasizing his position.

  “We mourn profoundly, Mr. Holcroft. We knew Herr Manfredi was not well, but we had no idea his illness had progressed so.”

  “What are you talking about? What happened?”

  “A terminal disease affects individuals differently. Our colleague was a vital man, an energetic man, and when such men cannot function in their normal fashions, it often leads to despondency and great depression.”

  “What happened?”

  “It was suicide, Mr. Holcroft. Herr Manfredi could not tolerate his incapacities.”

  “Suicide?”

  “There’s no point in speaking other than the truth. Ernst threw himself out of his hotel window. It was mercifully quick. At ten o’clock, La Grande Banque will suspend all business for one minute of mourning and reflection.”

  “Oh, my God.…”

  “However,” concluded the voice in Zurich, “all of Herr Manfredi’s accounts to which he gave his personal attention will be assumed by equally capable hands. We fully expect—”

  Noel hung up the phone, cutting off the man’s words. Accounts … will be assumed by equally capable hands. Business as usual; a man was killed, but the affairs of Swiss finance were not to be interrupted. And he was killed.

  Ernst Manfredi did not throw himself out of a hotel in Zurich. He was thrown out. Murdered by the men of Wolfsschanze.

  For God’s sake, why? Then Holcroft remembered. Manfredi had dismissed the men of Wolfsschanze. He had told Noel the macabre threats were meaningless, the anguish of sick old men seeking atonement.

  That had been Manfredi’s error. He had undoubtedly told his associates, the other directors of La Grande Banque, about the strange letter that had been delivered with the wax seals unbroken. Perhaps, in their presence, he had laughed at the men of Wolfsschanze.

  The match! The flare of light! Across the courtyard the woman in the window nodded! Again—as if reading his thoughts—she was confirming the truth. A dead woman was telling him he was right!

  She turned and walked away; all light went out in the window.

  “Come back! Come back!” Holcroft screamed, his hands on the panes of glass. “Who are you?”

  The telephone beneath him buzzed. Noel stared at it, as if it were a terrible thing in an unfamiliar place; it was both. Trembling, he picked it up.

  “Mr. Holcroft, it’s Jack. I think I may know what the hell happened up at your place. I mean, I didn’t think about it before, but it kinda hit me a few minutes ago.”

  “What was it?”

  “A couple of nights ago these two guys came in. Locksmiths. Mr. Silverstein, on your floor, was having his lock changed. Louie told me about it, so I knew it was okay. Then I began to think. Why did they come at night? I mean, what with overtime and everything, why didn’t they come in the daytime? So I just called Louie at home. He said they came yesterday. So who the hell were those other guys.”

  “Do you remember anything about them?”

  “You’re damned right I do! One of them in particular. You could pick him out in a crowd at the Garden! He had—”

  There was a loud, sharp report over the line.

  A gunshot!

  It was followed by a crash. The telephone in the lobby had been dropped!

  Noel slammed down the receiver and ran to the door, yanking it open with such force that it crashed into a framed sketch on the wall, smashing the glass. There was no time to consider the elevator. He raced down the stairs, his mind a blank, afraid to think, concentrating only on speed and balance, hoping to God he would not trip on the steps. He reached the landing and bolted through the lobby door.

  He stared in shock. The worst had happened. Jack the doorman was arched back over the chair, blood pouring out of his neck. He had been shot in the throat.

  He had interfered. He had been about to identify one of the men of Wolfsschanze and he had been killed for it.

  Baldwin, Manfredi … an innocent doorman. Dead.

  … all those who interfere will be stopped.… Any who stand in your way, who try to dissuade you, who try to deceive you … will be eliminated.

  … As you and yours will be should you h
esitate. Or fail.

  Manfredi had asked him if he really had a choice. He did not any longer.

  He was surrounded by death.

  5

  Althene Holcroft sat behind the desk in her study and glared at the words of the letter she held in her hand. Her chiseled, angular features—the high cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the wide-set eyes beneath arched, defined brows—were as taut, as rigid, as her posture in the chair. Her thin, aristocratic lips were tight; her breathing was steady, but each breath was too controlled, too deep, for normalcy. She read Heinrich Clausen’s letter as one studying a statistical report that contradicted information previously held to be incontrovertible.

  Across the room, Noel stood by a curving window that looked out on the rolling lawn and gardens behind the Bedford Hills house. A number of shrubs were covered with burlap; the air was cold, and the morning frost produced intermittent patches of light gray on the green grass.

  Holcroft turned from the scene outside and looked at his mother, trying desperately to conceal his fear, to control the occasional trembling that came upon him when he thought about last night. He could not allow the terror he felt to be seen by his mother. He wondered what thoughts were going through her head, what memories were triggered by the sight of the handwritten words in blue ink put down by a man she once had loved, then had grown to despise. Whatever she was thinking, it would remain private until she chose to speak. Althene communicated only that which she cared to convey deliberately.

  She seemed to sense his gaze and raised her eyes to his, but only briefly. She returned to the letter, allowing a briefer moment to brush away a stray lock that had fallen from the gray hair that framed her face. Noel wandered aimlessly toward the desk, glancing at the bookcases and photographs on the wall. The room reflected the owner, he mused. Graceful, even elegant; but, withal, there was a pervading sense of activity. The photographs showed men and women on horses at the hunt, in sailboats in rough weather, on skis in mountain snow. There was no denying it: There was an undercurrent of masculinity in this very feminine room. It was his mother’s study, her sanctuary where she repaired for private moments of consideration. But it could have belonged to a man.

  He sat down in the leather chair in front of the desk and lighted a cigarette with a gold Colibri, a parting gift from a young lady who had moved out of his apartment a month ago. His hand trembled again; he gripped the lighter as tightly as he could.

  “That’s a dreadful habit,” said Althene, her eyes remaining on the letter. “I thought you were going to give it up.”

  “I have. A number of times.”

  “Mark Twain said that. At least be original.”

  Holcroft shifted his position in the chair, feeling awkward. “You’ve read it several times now. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” said Althene, placing the letter on the desk in front of her. “He wrote it; it’s his handwriting, his way of expressing himself. Arrogant even in remorse.”

  “You agree it’s remorse then?”

  “It would appear so. On the surface, at any rate. I’d want to know a great deal more. I have a number of questions about this extraordinary financial undertaking. It’s beyond anything conceivable.”

  “Questions lead to other questions, mother. The men in Geneva don’t want that.”

  “Does it matter what they want? As I understand you, although you’re being elliptical, they’re asking you to give up a minimum of six months of your life and probably a good deal more.”

  Again, Noel felt awkward. He had decided not to show her the document from La Grande Banque. If she was adamant about seeing it, he could always produce it. If she was not, it was better that way; the less she knew, the better. He had to keep her from the men of Wolfsschanze. He had not the slightest doubt Althene would interfere.

  “I’m not holding back any of the essentials,” he said.

  “I didn’t say you were. I said you were elliptical. You refer to a man in Geneva you won’t identify; you speak of conditions you only half describe, the oldest children of two families you won’t name. You’re leaving out a great deal.”

  “For your own good.”

  “That’s condescending and, considering this letter, very insulting.”

  “I didn’t mean to be either.” Holcroft leaned forward. “No one wants that bank account even remotely connected with you. You’ve read that letter; you know what’s involved. Thousands and thousands of people, hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s no way to tell who might hold you responsible. You were the wife who told him the truth; you left him because he refused to accept it. When he finally realized that what you said was true, he did what he did. There may be men still alive who would kill you for that. I won’t let you be put in that position.”

  “I see.” Althene drew out the phrase, then repeated it as she rose from her chair and walked slowly across the room to the bay window. “Are you sure that’s the concern the men in Geneva expressed?”

  “They—he—implied it, yes.”

  “I suspect it was not the only concern.”

  “No.”

  “Shall I speculate on another?”

  Noel stiffened. It was not that he underestimated his mother’s perceptions—he rarely did that—but, as always, he was annoyed when she verbalized them before he had the chance to state them himself.

  “I think it’s obvious,” he said.

  “Do you?” Althene turned from the window and looked at him.

  “It’s in the letter. If the sources of that account were made public, there’d be legal problems. Claims would be made against it in the international courts.”

  “Yes.” His mother looked away. “It’s obvious, then. I’m amazed you were allowed to tell me anything.”

  Noel leaned back in the chair apprehensively, disturbed at Althene’s words. “Why? Would you really do something?”

  “It’s a temptation,” she answered, still gazing outside. “I don’t think one ever loses the desire to strike back, to lash out at someone or something that’s caused great pain. Even if that hurt changed your life for the better. God knows mine—ours—was changed. From a hell to a level of happiness I’d given up looking for.”

  “Dad?” asked Noel.

  Althene turned. “Yes. He risked more than you’ll ever know protecting us. I’d been the fool of the world and he accepted the fool—and the fool’s child. He gave us more than love; he gave us our lives again. He asked only love in return.”

  “You’ve given him that.”

  “I’ll give it till I die. Richard Holcroft is the man I once thought Clausen was. I was so wrong, so terribly wrong.… The fact that Heinrich has been dead these many years doesn’t seem to matter; the loathing won’t go away. I do want to strike back.”

  Noel kept his voice calm. He had to lead his mother away from her thoughts; the survivors of Wolfsschanze would not let her live. “You’d be striking back at the man you remember, not the man who wrote that letter. Maybe what you saw in him at first was really there. At the end, it came back to him.”

  “That would be comforting, wouldn’t it?”

  “I think it’s true. The man who wrote that letter wasn’t lying. He was in pain.”

  “He deserved pain, he caused so much; he was the most ruthless man I ever met. But on the surface, so different, so filled with purpose. And—oh, God—what that purpose turned out to be!”

  “He changed, mother,” interrupted Holcroft. “You were a part of that change. At the end of his life he wanted only to help undo what he’d done. He says it: ‘Amends must be made.’ Think what he did—what the three of them did—to bring that about.”

  “I can’t dismiss it; I know that. Any more than I can dismiss the words. I can almost hear him say them, but it’s a very young man talking. A young man filled with purpose, a very young, wild girl at his side.” Althene paused, then spoke again, clearly. “Why did you show me the letter? Why did you bring it all back?”


  “Because I’ve decided to go ahead. That means closing the office, traveling around a lot, eventually working out of Switzerland for a number of months. As the man in Geneva said, you wouldn’t have accepted all that without asking a lot of questions. He was afraid you’d learn something damaging and do something rash.”

  “At your expense?” asked Althene.

  “I guess so. He thought it was a possibility. He said those memories of yours were strong. ‘Indelibly printed’ were his words.”

  “Indelibly,” agreed Althene.

  “His point was that there were no legal solutions; that it was better to use the money the way it was intended to be used. To make those amends.”

  “It’s possible he was right. If it can be done. God knows it’s overdue. Whatever Heinrich touched, very little of value and truth was the result.” Althene paused, her face suddenly strained. “You were the one exception. Perhaps this is the other.”

  Noel got out of the chair and went to his mother. He took her by the shoulders and drew her to him. “That man in Geneva said you were incredible. You are.”

  Althene pulled back. “He said that? ‘Incredible’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ernst Manfredi,” she whispered.

  “You know him?” asked Holcroft.

  “It’s a name that goes back many years. He’s still alive then.”

  Noel did not answer her question. “How did you know it was he?”

  “A summer afternoon in Berlin. He was there. He helped us get out. You and I. He got us on the plane, gave me money. Dear God.…” Althene disengaged herself from her son’s arms and walked across the room, toward the desk. “He called me ‘incredible’ then, that afternoon. He said they would hunt me, find me. Find us. He said he would do what he could. He told me what to do, what to say. An unimpressive little Swiss banker was a giant that afternoon. My God, after all these years …”

  Noel watched his mother, his astonishment complete. “Why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he tell me?”

  Althene turned, facing her son but not looking at him. She was staring beyond him, seeing things he could not see. “I think he wanted me to find out for myself. This way. He was not a man to call in old debts indiscriminately.” She sighed. “I won’t pretend the questions are put to rest. I promise nothing. If I decide to take any action, I’ll give you ample warning. But for the time being I won’t interfere.”