Dead in the Water

and two starched and pressed black policemen got out. The officer gave them a casual salute with a swagger stick. “Mrs. Allison Manning, I presume?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Good afternoon,” he said, smiling, then handed her a document. “You are under arrest for the crime of murder. You will be charged tomorrow morning at ten o’clock at the courthouse in St. Marks City. Do you have any luggage?”
    “No,” Stone said quickly, “Mrs. Manning does not have any luggage.” He took the document and looked at it; it appeared to be a properly drawn warrant. He turned to Allison. “You’ll have to go with them. I’ll get you a locallawyer and see you at the hearing tomorrow morning. I doubt if I can get anything done until then.”
    Allison looked stunned. “All right,” she said. She put a hand on his arm. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She got into the Jeep and was driven away.
    Chester killed the engines. Stone watched until the Jeep had driven through the airport gates, then went and got her duffel and briefcase from the luggage compartment. He didn’t know what was in that briefcase, but he knew that he didn’t want Sir Winston Sutherland rooting around in there. Poor Allison Manning, he thought. She’s in for a rough time, and I suppose I’m going to have to help her.

Chapter
7
    S tone drove back to Markstown, mulling over what he might do to help Allison Manning. There wasn’t a whole lot, he reckoned. He could find her a local lawyer, and that was about it. Then he recalled that Sir Winston had asked him, during the fateful coroner’s jury, if he were licensed to practice in Britain. Maybe, with the help of Woodman and Weld in New York, he could get hold of some high-class British barrister and have him flown in, if Allison Manning could afford it. He parked the car behind Thomas Hardy’s restaurant and walked in.
    Thomas was alone at the bar, writing on a steno pad. He looked up as Stone came in. “I heard,” he said. “Chester called me.”
    “It looks bad,” Stone said, taking a stool and handing Thomas the arrest warrant. “I’m going to have to find her a first-class barrister.”
    Thomas shoved a pad across the bar. “I thought that might be the case. Here’s a list of three who might—I stress, might—take her on.”
    Stone read four names. “What about the fourth name?”
    “First we’d better call the first three. Shall I?”
    “Please.”
    Thomas picked up the phone and dialed a number.
    Ten minutes later, after the third call, Thomas hung up the phone.
    “Well?” Stone said.
    “No hope,” Thomas replied. “The word is out that Sir Winston really wants this one—nobody knows exactly why—and nobody is going to go up against him right at this moment in time, with an election coming up soon. The consensus seems to be that a conviction would give him a lot of favorable publicity, and nobody wants to get between Sir Winston and publicity.”
    “What if Sir Winston should lose the case?”
    “As far as I can tell from these phone conversations, nobody in the legal community thinks he’s going to.”
    “How about somebody else?”
    “Not a chance,” Thomas said. “I eliminated most of them before I made my list. Those three were the only ones who might have opposed Sir Winston.”
    “What about the fourth name on the list?”
    “Sir Leslie Hewitt,” Thomas said.
    “Yes, what about him?”
    “He’ll represent her,” Thomas said. “He hates Sir Winston’s guts, as his father before him did.”
    “Well, then, give him a call.”
    Thomas shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
    “Explain it to me.”
    “Leslie was once a first-rate barrister, one of the best, in fact.”
    “And now?”
    “He’s well past eighty; he hasn’t tried a case in at least fifteen years; and…”
    “And?”
    “And he’s…failing, you know? I mean, he’s bright as a new penny at times, but at other times…”
    “I think I get the picture,” Stone said. “You’re suggesting that an eighty-year-old barrister who’s half gaga should defend Allison Manning?”
    “No, that’s not what I’m suggesting. You’ve got a hearing tomorrow morning at ten, and somebody besides you has got to be there to go through the motions, to be the barrister of record until you can get somebody in here from out of the country.”
    “You mean from England?”
    “Probably. You could go to Antigua, which is another former British colony and which has a similar legal