The Short Forever

arrived.

                        “There’s a buzzer on the table, there,” the bank officer said. “Ring when you need me.”

                        Lance nodded and sat down.

                        “You have the item?” one of the men asked.

                        Lance set the catalogue case on the table and opened it. He handed over the device, wrapped in tissue paper.

                        Nervously, the man on the other side of the table tore away the paper, then held the device in his hands and weighed it. “It’s very light,” he said.

                        “Very advanced metallurgy,” Lance said. “Are you ready to make the transfer?”

                        “How do we know this is the device you promised?”

                        “I would have thought that your people would have been smart enough to send someone with the skills to authenticate it.”

                        He handed the device to his companion, who inspected it for, perhaps, two minutes, then nodded.

                        “All right,” the first man said, “we are ready to make the transfer.”

                        “I think, perhaps, you should put that away,” Lance said, nodding at the device and pushing the catalogue case across the table. When the device was safely in the case, Lance pressed the button.

                        The bank officer returned with a file folder and sat down at the table. “Have you successfully completed your transaction?” he asked.

                        “We will have when the funds have been transferred,” Lance said.

                        “I have made out the paperwork as per your instructions,” the banker said. “Five million dollars to be transferred to your numbered account.”

                        “That’s correct,” Lance said.

                        The banker laid the documents before the two Middle Easterners. They examined them, and one of them signed.

                        “I’ll just be a moment,” the banker said. He took the documents and left the room.

                        Lance sat and looked at the two men, who impassively returned his gaze. No one said anything.

                        Presently, the banker returned. “Gentlemen, your transaction is complete.”

                        The two men rose and left the room without a word.

                        “Will there be anything else, sir?” the banker asked Lance.

                        Lance thought for a moment. “Yes,” he replied.

            Ted Cricket stood in a light rain outside the Guinea pub and restaurant, in a mews off Berkeley Square. It was nearly eleven o’clock. The door to the restaurant opened, and Cricket stepped back into the shadows and looked around. The mews was empty.

                        Hedger left the restaurant alone, weaving a little, and started up the mews toward Berkeley Square. He walked right past Cricket, no more than six feet away.

                        Cricket stepped from the shadows, reached out, cupped a hand over Hedger’s mouth, and ran the slim blade into his back, thrusting upward. Hedger’s knees gave way, and when Cricket released him, he collapsed onto the wet cobblestones.

                        Cricket looked up and down the mews again; empty. He rolled Hedger over, switched on a tiny flashlight, and shone it into Hedger’s face. He was still alive. “This is for Bobby Jones,” Cricket said. He placed the knife point on Hedger’s chest, over the heart, shoved it through the flesh, twisted it ninety degrees, and pulled it out, wiping the blade on Hedger’s fine Savile Row jacket. Hedger coughed up some blood, then was still.

                        Cricket walked up the mews into Berkeley Square, then around the square and into the warren of streets that was Mayfair. He waited until he reached Park Lane before hailing a taxi.

                        The telephone was ringing as Stone let himself into the house.

                        “Hello?”

                        “It’s Sarah,” she said. “I’m at Monica’s gallery; Erica is here, and she’s very upset.”

                        “Bring her here for the night,” Stone replied. “Don’t take her back to the Farm Street house for any reason.”

                        “What’s going on?” Sarah asked.

                        “I don’t want to tell you on the phone,” Stone said. “Get here as soon as you can; I’ll wait up for you.”

            The two women arrived in a rush, carrying Erica’s luggage.

                        “I moved out of the house,” Erica said. “It seemed very strange with Lance not there, and I was hearing clicking noises on the phone.”

                        “You did the right thing,” Stone replied. “I think you should fly back to New York tomorrow.”

                        “It seems the only thing to do,” Erica said.

                        “Stone, what is going on?” Sarah demanded.

                        “Lance has been involved in some sort of smuggling, I think, and they’re looking for him.”

                        “Who’s looking for him?”

                        “Just about everybody.”

                        “Good God.”

                        “I’m going home tomorrow, too,” he said. “Dino, will you call British Airways and book the three of us on the Concorde?” He still had some of Stan Hedger’s money.

                        Dino went into the kitchen to use the phone.

                        “Why don’t you get Erica to bed?” Stone asked Sarah. “I’m pretty bushed myself.”

                        By the time Sarah crawled into bed with him, he was out.

                 Chapter 59

                        STONE AND DINO WERE HAVING BREAKFAST when the doorbell rang. Stone answered it, to find Detective Inspector Evelyn Throckmorton standing there with another officer, looking grim.

                        “Good morning,” Stone said.

                        “No, it isn’t,” Throckmorton replied, brushing past him and walking into the drawing room. “Come in here and sit down.”

                        “I was about to call you; how on earth did you find me here?” Stone asked.

                        “I had Miss Burroughs followed,” Throckmorton replied, “and my people weren’t the only ones doing so. Where is she?”

                        “Upstairs, asleep,” Stone replied.

                        “No, I’m not,” Erica said from the doorway.

                        Stone introduced her to the two men.

                        “I have only a few questions for you, Miss Burroughs,” Throckmorton said, and he proceeded to ask them. Ten minutes of grilling her produced nothing, and he told her she could go.

                        “Get some breakfast,” Stone said to her. “I’ll be a few minutes.”

                        “Well, Barrington,” Throckmorton said, “you’ve certainly managed to mix in a number of things, haven’t you?”

                        “I suppose I have,” Stone replied.

                        “How about Stanford Hedger’s death; did you mix in that?”

                        Stone had no trouble looking surprised. “He’s dead?”

                        “Knifed outside a Mayfair restaurant late last evening.”