Stone’s cell phone rang, and he flipped it open. “Yes?”

“It’s Joan. You have a new client waiting, so you should get your ass back here in a hurry. This one smells of money.”

“What new client? Eggers hasn’t said anything about sending anybody over.”

“Mrs. Bernard Finger.”

“I’ll be right there,” Stone said. He closed the phone. “Bob, you’ll have to take it from here; I’ve got a fire to build.”

Cantor nodded.

Stone ran out of the building, searching for a cab.

Joan met him at the outer door to his office. “She’s very upset; I did the best I could to calm her.”

“Good girl,” Stone said, kissing her on the top of her head. He strode into his office and found Mrs. Bernard Finger sitting on his sofa, sipping a cup of tea and munching on a cookie, looking not at all upset. She appeared to be in her early forties, very well maintained and pretty much a knockout in her age group and maybe a couple of younger ones, Stone thought.

“Mrs. Finger,” he said, extending a hand, “I’m Stone Barrington. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Call me Bernice,” she said, shaking his hand. “I expect you know why I’m here.”

“Why don’t you tell me,” Stone said. “Tell me everything.” He sat down on the sofa and listened intently to every word she said, nodding sympathetically. He knew most of it, but when she patted a briefcase on the sofa beside her, he really began to listen.

“It’s all in here,” she said. “Everything.”

“May I have a look?” Stone asked.

She unsnapped the briefcase and spun it around. Inside were a number of file folders. “I think you will find this helpful.”

Stone picked up the folders. There were four, and they were a collective two inches thick. “May I take a moment to familiarize myself?” he asked.

“Take your time,” Bernice said. “I’ve got the rest of the day.”

Stone opened the first file and found himself staring at a series of financial statements going back over ten years. The most recent was dated a month before, and in toto the statements gave a very good picture of Bernie Finger’s climb from a net worth of four million dollars ten years before to a current net worth of thirty-eight million dollars. The beauty part, Stone thought, was that Bernie was at least fifty percent liquid. He went through the other folders, which contained brokerage account statements; bank statements; and copies of deeds for his Fifth Avenue co-op, the house in the Hamptons, a ski lodge in Telluride and, wonder of wonders, the new penthouse on Park Avenue where he had stashed Marilyn the Masseuse. Stone cleared his throat. “And Bernice, may I ask how you came by these documents?”

“Of course,” she said. “They were in the safe.”

“In the safe, where?”