“Hello?” Lance’s voice.
“I want it,” another male voice said. “You’re all out of time.” The quality of the connection was poor, as if the call were coming from some Third World country.
“Let me make this as clear for you as I possibly can,” Lance said, and the rest was as Stone had heard a moment before.
“Let me hear it again,” Stone said.
Jones rewound the machine, and Stone listened carefully. The voice was American, he thought, but he could not be sure, and it didn’t sound like Bartholomew. “Once more,” Stone said, and listened.
“Sounds like he’s got somebody on his back,” Jones said, resetting the machine.
“Yes, it does.”
“Sounds like money to me.”
“Could be. Could be almost anything of value—even information.”
“I suppose so, but I’m a copper right to the bone, and I tend to think in the simplest terms, especially where a threat to kill is involved.”
“You could be right,” Stone admitted. “By the way, I checked with a knowledgeable friend in New York, and Stanford Hedger has been dead for two years.”
“You could have fooled me,” Jones said, letting them out of the garage and locking the door behind him. “What do you make of that?”
“Well, one of two things, I guess: either Hedger isn’t dead, or he’s dead and Bartholomew is using his identity for some purpose.”
“This is far too thick for me,” Jones said. “Give me a nice homicide any day; I never know what to make of these spooks.”
“You’ve had experience with them before?”
“Yes, but only with the blokes on our side—MI6. The trouble with trying to figure them out is you never know what they want, and if they explained it to you, you probably wouldn’t understand it.”
Stone laughed. “I see your point. I have a feeling, though, that whatever is going on here is taking place outside the bounds of any official action. It sounds awfully personal to me.”
Stone said goodbye to Jones and returned to the party. As he entered the house, he encountered Lance, who had an empty glass in his hand.
“Where did you go?” Lance asked, motioning him to follow toward the bar.
“Just for a stroll; I felt like some air.”
“I know the feeling,” Lance replied. “These wakes can be oppressive.”
“It was good of you to have it here.”
“I’m happy to help out Sarah at a difficult time.” He got a drink from the barman and led Stone out into a small garden. They sat down on a teak bench.
“Lovely house,” Stone said.
“I had nothing to do with that,” Lance said. “It came as you see it, right from the agency. The owner is with the Foreign Office; he’s in India or someplace.”
“Good break for you.”
“The rent isn’t a good break. Tell me, is what I’ve been reading in the papers true?”
“I don’t know; what have you been reading?”
“That Sarah is going to inherit James’s estate.”
“That much is true,” Stone said. “I’ve seen the will.”
“How much?”
“Hard to say; difficult to put a value on the business.” So far, he hadn’t told Lance anything that wasn’t public knowledge.
“I suppose Sarah will sell it.”
“I don’t know if she’s had time to think about it. I imagine there’ll be quite a lot of legal work to be done before it’s settled.”
“This turn of events brings me back to what I initially said to you about the boating accident.”
“You still think it wasn’t an accident?”
“I have a suspicious mind.”
“Well, I’ve looked into it a bit, and so has Sir Bernard Pickering, and to my knowledge, no information has arisen to indicate that Sarah even knew about the contents of James’s will.”
“But you can’t say definitively that she did or didn’t know.”
“I don’t think anyone can, but it’s my best judgment, based on what Sarah has told me and on my knowledge of her character, that she did not know.”
“You sound as if you’re testifying at a trial.”
“You sound as if you’re conducting one.”
Lance laughed. “Fair enough.”
“How well did you know James?”
“I’d met him two or three times.”
“What did you think of him?”
“I thought that, like a lot of men, he was very smart about business and very stupid about almost everything else.”
“You mean about Sarah?”
“Yes. She obviously didn’t love him.”
Stone nodded. “I think you’re right; she was under a lot of pressure from her parents to marry him. I don’t think she would have gone through with it.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because Sarah impressed me as someone who would not have let an opportunity like James get past her.”
“That’s a pretty cynical view. How well do you know Sarah?”
“Not all that well, but I’m a pretty good judge of character.”
This conversation was going nowhere, Stone thought. He decided to change the subject. “Do you know someone named Stanford Hedger?”
Lance turned and looked at him for a moment. “No, I don’t,” he said. Then he got up and walked back into the house, leaving Stone on the garden bench.