Stone Barrington 06-11

minutes, two men came into the wine cellar; a moment later, another person came in and shot them both.” He had Hedger’s undivided attention now.
    Their first courses arrived, and Stone waited for the waiter to depart before continuing. “When I got out of the office, they were both dead—two small-caliber shots to the head, in both cases.”
    “I hope to God you didn’t call the police.”
    “No, I got the hell out of there, after removing any fingerprints I might have left on various surfaces.”
    “Good,” Hedger said, relieved.
    “The two men were my former abductors.”
    Hedger looked surprised. “Oh, really?”
    “They were carrying Greek passports.”
    “ Greek ?” Hedger grunted. “Probably false.”
    “They looked good to me.”
    “Would you recognize a false passport?”
    “I’ve seen a few, but to answer your question, probably not a good one.”
    “Well, let’s sum up,” Hedger said.
    “Not yet, there’s more.”
    “More?”
    “I went to find Lance and Erica; we had a drink, and then we returned to the Farm Street house. Erica cooked, and Lance asked me to go to the cellar and bring up some wine. I did, and the bodies were gone, everything cleaned up.”
    Hedger looked really interested. “How long were you out of the house?”
    “An hour and a half, maybe two hours.”
    “Long enough for Lance to visit the house, clean up, and return to the other house?”
    “If he hurried, and if he was very efficient. He was on the phone when I arrived at the other house, but I’ve no idea how long he had been there.”

    “Could Lance have had any idea you’d been to the Farm Street house?”
    “Possibly, since I got the keys from Monica. Maybe she told him.”
    “So he sent you down to the cellar so you could see for yourself that everything had been cleaned up.”
    “Perhaps. I’ll have to find out if Monica told him I had the keys.”
    “Do that. Now, as I said, to sum up, what does this tell us about Lance?”
    “You tell me.”
    “It tells us that Lance is a part of something bigger than himself.”
    “How does it tell us that?”
    “You obviously didn’t read the papers this morning.”
    “Not thoroughly.”
    “Your two ‘Greeks’ were found in Hyde Park, in the trunk of a stolen car. The police are quite excited about it.”
    “Oh.”
    “I very much doubt if Lance had time to steal a car, load the bodies into it, and clean up the wine cellar, all on his own.”
    “You have a point. But what if it wasn’t Lance?”
    “Who else might it be?”
    “The bald man?”
    “They were his men; why would he shoot them in Lance’s wine cellar, then clean up after himself? I could understand that he might wish to pin the murders on Lance, but in that case, he’d have left them where they lay, for somebody to find, wouldn’t he?”
    “I suppose so.”
    “The parties we know are involved in this are Lance, the bald man and his two companions, and the two ‘Greeks,’ and they’re dead. If there’s another party, I don’t know about it, and neither do you.”
    “Lance would,” Stone said. “If he knows anything. It’s possible that another party murdered the two men, and Lance knows nothing about it.”
    “If you were the investigating officer, and you are, in a way, would you believe that?”
    “It wouldn’t be my first theory,” Stone admitted.
    “Now, back to the bald gentleman. I think he’s a diplomat; how do we find out who he is?”
    “Tonight, I’ll have a list of the people at table twelve,” Stone said. “We can begin there.”
    “Very good,” Hedger said. The waiter arrived with their sole, and they tucked into it.
    Stone liked the roe.

38
    LATER THAT EVENING, MR. CHEVALIER, the maître d’ in the Connaught restaurant, took note that Stone had arrived, for the second time that week, with a beautiful woman. He must have had a sense of humor, because he seated them at the same corner table that Stone had shared with Sarah.
    Sarah had called that afternoon. “Why don’t I cook you some dinner at my flat this evening?”
    “I’m afraid I already have plans,” Stone said.
    “Anyone I know?”
    Strictly speaking, no, though she knew about Arrington. “No.”
    “I’m not sure I like this.”
    “It’s business,” Stone said, falling back on the most convenient lie. He didn’t like lying, but he was cornered.
    “Oh.”
    “How’s it going with James’s estate?” he asked, wanting to remind her that she should, strictly speaking,