Stone knew that, among the British, not seeming to try very hard was admirable. “What sports did he play?”
“Cricket, track-he was a sprinter-and he was good on horse-back. I believe he had grown up with his own horse.”
“Anything else from the Eton years that might be of help in identifying him?”
Smith thought for a moment. “He suffered a fall from a horse and acquired a cut on his forehead,” he said, pointing to a spot high over his right eyebrow. “Needed stitches. Left a thin line of a scar about two inches long.”
Stone took the photograph of Whitestone from his pocket, looked at it and handed it to Smith. “Do you see it here?”
Smith checked. “No,” he said.
“He had it removed, then?”
“Possibly. Or it may have moved into his hairline as he grew up. I can’t think of anything else that might identify him now. After we left Eton I was at Oxford, and he was at Cambridge. I saw him two or three times at parties in London, then not again until I… became employed as a civil servant.”
“Did you join the service at the same time?”
“No, I did two years of National Service, which he seemed to have avoided, so he was senior to me when I came aboard.”
Felicity spoke up. “Whitestone attended Cambridge as a King’s Scholar,” she said, “after being recruited his first semester. It was arranged that he did his National Service with us.”
Smith seemed a bit miffed. “I rather thought it was something like that,” he said. “I was recruited out of the army.”
Stone kept himself from laughing at this display of jealousy. “What were your impressions of him at the time of your joining?”
“Much the same as at Eton,” Smith said, “only by that time he had acquired considerable charm. Perhaps that happened at Cambridge.”
Felicity consulted a file on her desk. “Whitestone joined the theater group there and became adept at comedy. A number of his contemporaries went on to become professional actors, and half a dozen of them did very well. He had that opportunity but was already committed to us.”
“Then I would assume that he learned about makeup and disguise in the theater group,” Stone said.
“A logical assumption,” Felicity replied. “He made good use of that knowledge in the field.”
Stone turned back to Smith. “Why did you dislike Whitestone?” he asked.
“Dislike?” Smith asked.
“All right, hate,” Stone said.
Smith said nothing.
“Answer him,” Felicity said.
“I tend to distrust people who have too much charm,” said Smith, who seemed to have very little himself.
“Did he advance in the service faster than you?” Stone asked.
“I told you, he was two years ahead of me; naturally, he would have been promoted sooner.”
“Did your record of advancement match his?”
Smith scratched an itch on his forehead. “I don’t think anyone advanced as quickly as he.”
“Was he considered a candidate for… top management?” Stone asked.
“I would have had to be above him to know that,” Smith said, looking pointedly at Felicity.
“Probably,” Felicity said. “I was junior to him, but-to use an American term-the scuttlebutt was that he was headed for the top.”
“Did he leave abruptly?” Stone asked.
Felicity answered. “He didn’t turn up at the office one day, and later that morning the interoffice post delivered a one-sentence letter of resignation to the director.”
“Have you seen the letter?” Stone asked.
“It’s in his file.”
“Was it profane or disrespectful?”
“I believe he told the director to get stuffed.”
Stone couldn’t help laughing. “Mr. Smith, where were you at the time of Whitestone’s… departure?”
“I was working in his section,” Smith replied.
“And what section was that?”
Felicity interrupted. “I don’t believe that’s relevant.”
“Let me rephrase,” Stone said. “Was he doing work that could have benefited him financially if he had used the information he had gained in his work in the private sector?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “I thought you understood that.”
“Was his work of a financial nature?”
Felicity stared at the ceiling. “I can’t think of a way to answer that question without telling you more than you need to know to accomplish your task.”
“I’ll try again,” Stone said. “Given his experience, might he have gone to work in the financial industry? In the City, perhaps?”
“Nothing as overt as that,” she replied. “It’s more likely that he would have been employed surreptitiously by someone in a position to profit from his experience.”
“Do you have a name of a possible employer?”
“The evidence is inconclusive,” she said.
“To whom did the evidence point?”
“I would not wish his name to be bandied about,” she said.
“Of course not, but knowing it might be very helpful in learning the whereabouts of Whitestone.”
Felicity sighed. “Lord Wight,” she said.
Stone’s eyebrows went up.
“I believe you may have known him briefly,” Felicity said, “during your little sojourn in London a few years back.”
Indeed, Stone had met him. Lord Wight was the father of a woman he had been quite attached to for some months in that year, and he had visited the family home in the South of England. “Was this before or after Lord Wight’s financial difficulties?” he asked.
“During and after,” she responded. “It was rumored that Whitestone was responsible for saving his bacon and recovering much of Wight’s fortune and reputation.”
Stone was puzzled. “But you were unable to verify this?”
“We verified it to our satisfaction,” she replied, “but that did not rise to an actionable level.”
“Were crimes committed at the time?” he asked.
“We believe that both Lord Wight and Whitestone benefited greatly from insider information supplied by Whitestone.”
“I see,” he said.
Felicity looked at her watch.
Smith stood. “Please excuse me,” he said. “I have another appointment.”
“Of course,” Felicity replied. Smith left the room, and Felicity stood. “I hope that what you have heard may be of use to you, Mr. Barrington,” she said.
The woman in the outer office suddenly appeared. “May I escort you out, Mr. Barrington?”
Stone got up. “Yes, thank you. And thank you, Dame Felicity.”
“Good day, Mr. Barrington,” she replied.
Stone followed the woman to the elevator, where she unlocked the panel and pressed a button. When he arrived on the ground floor, his uniformed escort was waiting for him. A moment later he was on the front steps of the house, blinking in the sunshine.
