“From Czechoslovakia,” he mused. “You are the last.”
“Yes,” said Harlik, with not much emotion on his face, “I am the last to have been dispossessed. But your turn was almost as recent, I believe.”
Von Bolen nodded.
“In September of 1939 the German government confiscated the Haygar estates. Our assets had long been listed, but we had hoped to be immune, since the German branch of the family was most influential in helping Der Fuehrer in his rise to power. But there was to be no immunity after all. And the government was to be in war in a month. So all the Haygar wealth was seized.”
Harlik nodded.
“Our branch, near the Skoda works, fared the same. When Munich gave part of the country to Germany, we feared for the worst. Two months ago it came. I am the sole Haygar left from Czechoslovakia, and all our assets have been taken over—”
There was another tap at the door.
This time the man who came over the threshold was slim and dapper, though elderly, with a small, neat mustache and a tiny spike of a goatee. He looked like a doctor.
“Harlik Haygar?” he said, voice high and reedy. “I am Sharnoff Haygar of Moscow. But this, perhaps, will speak more loudly than words.”
He extended a gold medallion, but kept it carefully in his own hand while Harlik examined it.
“Cousin,” said Harlik, pointing out a chair. The man already seated, von Bolen Haygar, introduced himself.
“You have been an expatriate for some time, have you not, Cousin Sharnoff?” von Bolen asked.
“For seven years,” replied the Haygar from Russia. “In Paris, Basle, and Alexandria. Then here. It was in 1933 that the Bolsheviks took the last of our estates from us.”
The three men stared uncertainly at each other for a moment. All of the same family — but the beginning of that family dipped back in the centuries, so that still they were utter strangers to each other.
There was another tap. The man who entered this time did not look Caucasian at. all. He wore ordinary clothes — pretty shabby ones, too — but you could fairly see a turban on his head and a voluminous robe on his strong body. He was almost as dark as a Negro, with dark eyes, squinted and surrounded by lines from peering into the desert.
“Shan Haygar, Turkey,” said this man, showing his gold medallion.
Again there was a silence, as each looked at the other. It was the dapper little Sharnoff who broke it. He was more urbane and courteous than the others.
“A unique occasion, gentlemen,” he said. His voice had almost a purring quality. “We represent, here, a family that has probably never been surpassed in its influence over the affairs of the globe. Perhaps it has been equaled by the famous Rothschilds, but certainly not surpassed. And now-we are the poorest of the poor. Unless Shan Haygar—”
He peered questioningly at the latest arrival.
The man who was a Turk in spite of English clothes smiled wryly and shook his dark head.
“Year by year,” he said, “the regime of Kemal Pasha in Turkey has drained the resources of the family there. Now they are entirely gone. Entirely! I came to America in the steerage class of an Italian boat so filthy that none of you would have spat upon it.”
Again they were silent, these survivors of a once-great house. Branch by branch, they had set up shop in various countries. They had intermarried with the natives there, becoming German, Russian, Turkish — yet still Haygar.
“There should be a fifth,” said von Bolen Haygar at length. “All our clan is not yet represented.”
Sharnoff nodded.
“Francisco Haygar of Spain. Where is he?”
“Surely you gentlemen know,” shrugged Shan. “Francisco Haygar and his son were murdered in Valencia. Only the daughter, Carmella, is alive. But she is in the city, I understood. Why is she not here, now?”
“She is to meet us later,” said Harlik smoothly. “She it is who was responsible for having this meeting held today instead of several days ago.”
“Perhaps she has gone directly to the island in Maine,” murmured Sharnoff, with a sudden tightening of bland eyes in his neat, small face.
“If she has—” exclaimed von Bolen gutturally, his fists clenching.
“But, no,” said Shan. “It would do her no good to meet alone with him. We are all to meet, which is why we all came here. We judged it wise to go there in a group—”
There was another tap on the door.
In the room a surprised silence held the four. Then von Bolen whispered, “It is this Carmella, perhaps. Yes?”
Harlik shook his head, looking worried.
“She was not to be here so soon. We should be prepared, I think.”
They all understood that.
Von Bolen took out a Luger-type automatic, which he held with the easy assurance of a military man. Sharnoff produced a small derringer, as neat and miniature as himself. Shan drew a revolver.
Harlik Haygar took out the knife with the infernal glint of razor-sharpness on its edge. And then he opened the door.
A spidery old man stood there, regarding them out of watery blue eyes. He had an eagle beak of a nose over a mouth that didn’t seem to exist at all until he spoke, when knife-thin lips parted a fraction of an inch.
“Gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. I am Harlik Haygar!”
It was a bombshell. The three with guns leaped to their feet with faces going either pale or red according to their blood-reactions to shock. They stared at the spidery old man with death in their eyes.
“You can prove that, perhaps?” said Shan softly.
“Certainly! By this.”
The spidery old man took out a gold medallion.
“This is all a lie!” panted the Harlik Haygar who had been playing host. “This man is an imposter! I swear it! I am Harlik Haygar!”
Von Bolen, gun steady in his right hand, reached for the medallion with his left. He looked at it, stepped with it to the table where his hat reposed, and dropped the coin on the hardwood surface. Its clear ring sounded.
“That is my medallion,” panted the man in whose rooms they stood. “It was stolen from me. That is the truth. On the street I was robbed. I got the man who robbed me and the man to whom he sold the medallion. But I could not recover the gold coin itself. But that is mine—”
His voice died as he stared from face to face of the four men.
In Shan’s eyes was almost a dreamy look as his dark finger tightened a little on the revolver’s trigger. Sharnoff’s eyes were like small stones as his derringer shoved forward a little like the head of a snake about to strike. Von Bolen’s eyes held no emotion at all, but the gun in the Prussian’s hand settled back a fraction of an inch.
“This man is the imposter,” pleaded the younger Harlik, pointing with a shaking finger at the spidery old fellow. “He holds a medallion stolen from me. Believe me! Say something!”
The four were closing in on him. The latest comer, coin still in his hand, had a gun out, too, now. He was grinning just a little, knife-edge lips showing a thin glint of yellowed, snaggly teeth.
“Help—”
Just the one cry ripped out. Then four guns spoke! And each was pressed tight against the victim’s body. Four reports, sickeningly muffled.
“There has been noise,” suggested Sharnoff, blowing lightly over the muzzle of the little derringer.
“Better to go,” said von Bolen in his guttural tone. “We know where next we shall see each other. It seems that this imposter who had everything but his identifying medallion”—he looked expressionlessly at the dead man—“got in touch also with Carmella Haygar. So, doubtless, she will join us at our final destination. Shall we leave — and separate for the moment?”
The four filed out, walking calmly out at different times and taking different directions.