Stone Barrington 06-11

houses are either on the beach or on the Inland Waterway, which in Palm Beach is called Lake Worth. Thad’s place is on Lake Worth. It’s more sheltered for the boat.” Shortly, she turned the Jaguar through a large gate into a circular drive and stopped before a palazzo that seemed to have been airlifted from Venice. “Here we are. Leave the luggage. Somebody will get it.”
    Stone followed her to the huge double front doors. She pushed and a door swung back to reveal a central hallway that ran straight through the house. The hall was a gallery, hung with large oils. Stone recognized a Turner.
    “Oh, good,” she said. “They’ve finished redoing the hall.” She led Stone out the back door and into gorgeously planted gardens.
    Stone looked back. “You’d never know the house was under construction,” he said.
    “The outside is all finished, now, so all the equipment and tools are inside.” They passed through the gardens and onto a broad lawn, beyond which Lake Worth gleamed in the sunlight.
    Blocking most of the view, however, was a very large, very beautiful old yacht.
    “That’s Toscana, ” Callie said.
    “She’s glorious.”
    “She was built in Italy in the thirties. Thad spent two years both restoring her to her original condition and almost invisibly modernizing every system on board.”
    “How big is she?”
    “Two hundred and twenty-two feet, but with only seven cabins, so everyone aboard can be comfortable. Thad gives me the smallest one, but that’s bigger than the big cabins on lesser yachts.”
    A small Hispanic young man wearing a smart uniform of white shirt and shorts came down the gangplank to meet them.
    “Stone, this is Juanito, Toscana ’s chief steward. Juanito, this is Mr. Barrington.”
    “Welcome aboard,” Juanito said. “Mr. Barrington is in cabin number two. Mr. Thad phoned to say he was coming.”
    “I’ll show him aboard,” Callie said. “Our luggage is in the Jag.”
    Juanito found a handcart and ran off toward the house.
    Stone followed Callie into the main saloon, and it was as if they had stepped into a much earlier decade. “My God,” he said, “it might have been launched yesterday.”
    “Yes, Thad did a really good job on the restoration. Come on, I’ll show you to your cabin. Thad has given you the best one, after the master stateroom.” She led the way down a central passage off the saloon and opened a heavy mahogany door on the starboard side. “Here you are.”
    Stone stepped into a cabin paneled in mahogany, with white painted trim. There was a carved marble fireplace on one side of the room, with a sofa and a pair of chairs facing it, and behind them, a large bed with a canopy, trimmed in nautical-looking fabric. Out the large porthole was a view of the water. “Marvelous,” he said.
    “Your bath is in here,” Callie said, switching on a light.
    More marble, with a large tub and a separate shower stall. “I’ve never seen anything like this vessel,” Stone said, “although I once sank a yacht nearly as large.”
    “Run her on the rocks?”
    “No, I was just angry with her owner.”
    Callie looked at him, unsure whether he was serious. “I wouldn’t mention that to Thad,” she said. “You might make him nervous.”
    Juanito appeared with Stone’s luggage. “May I unpack for you, Mr. Barrington?”
    “Thank you, Juanito, yes.”
    “And would you like your suits pressed?”
    “Thank you again.”
    “My cabin is down the hall,” Callie said, grabbing the single small duffel that had accompanied her. “Why don’t you poke around, take a look at Toscana ? Dinner at eight all right? I booked from the airplane.”
    “Fine. How are we dressing?”
    “It’s an elegant place, and the crowd will be elegantly dressed, at least, as they define elegant.”
    “See you a little before eight,” Stone said. He left Juanito to do his work and began to explore the big yacht. There were two other cabins on the starboard side, and another three on the port side. Stone took a narrow staircase up a deck and emerged under a broad awning covering an expanse of teak decking. The superstructure was forward, and a set of doors led to what he suspected was the master stateroom. He took another staircase and came to the bridge, where a man in his mid-thirties, wearing the same white uniform as Juanito, except with more stripes on his shoulder boards, was sitting at the chart table.
    “G’day,” the young man said with an Australian twang.