“Well, enjoy your run, but please keep to the roads. We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here, so be careful.”

“I will, Sergeant.”

“Is Stone at home now?”

“Yep. Doing the crossword.”

“I’ll drop in on him.”

Holly said good-bye and continued her run.

STONE ANSWERED THE door to find Sergeant Young there. “Come on in, Sergeant,” he said.

“Thank you. I just met your lady friend, Ms. Barker, on the road.”

“Yes, she’s staying here. You want some coffee?”

“No thanks. Already had some this morning.”

Stone led him into the study. “I’m glad you dropped by; I want to show you something.” He went to the cabinet that once concealed the safe and opened it.

“What happened here?” Young asked.

“We came home last night to find that somebody had been in the house and ripped out the safe that was here.”

“What was in the safe?”

“Nothing particularly valuable: papers and such. And Esme Stone’s diary.”

Young looked at him sharply. “That’s the second diary to go missing,” he said. “Janey Harris’s was taken, too.”

“I don’t know if that’s what our visitor was looking for,” Stone said. “I can’t imagine how he’d know the diary was in the safe.”

“Who knew where it was?”

“Only three other people: Holly Barker, another woman of my acquaintance who was visiting, and her young son. The boy found the diary in an upstairs bedroom that Esme used for a study, and he was copying her handwriting, which was quite beautiful.”

“Did you read any of the diary?”

“No. I felt I would have been intruding.”

Sergeant Young made some notes in his notebook. “What time did this happen?”

“I guess between eight and ten; that’s about when Holly and I were having dinner at the inn.”

“Anybody know you were going?”

“No. Seth and Mabel Hotchkiss were on the mainland last night. But we were in Dick’s old MG, which is a pretty recognizable car. Just about anyone who might have seen us would have known it.”

“Why do you think he took the whole safe?”

“I suppose because he tried to open it and failed. Probably wanted to work on it at his leisure.”

“Was it an expensive safe? Hard to open, I mean?”

“A friend of mine opened it in a few minutes, without the combination.”

“Would that have been Ms. Barker?”

“Yes.”

“You have any idea how the thief got into the house? I understand this place is supposed to be very secure.”

“We’re baffled. Our best guess is he had a key.”

“Who else has keys?”

“Seth and Mabel Hotchkiss. Caleb Stone had a key, but he gave it back to me. The locks are by a Swedish company called Assa. They’re just about impossible to pick, and you can only get a key or even a blank from the manufacturer through a dealer.”