“Yes?” she said, opening the door slightly.

Stone showed his badge. “My name is Detective Barrington. Is there a Ms. Balfour at this address?”

“Just a minute,” the maid said, closing the door and shutting them out. She went to a telephone in the entrance hall, spoke a few words into it, then returned and opened the front door wide. “Please come in,” she said. “Mrs. Balfour will be right down.”

As they entered, Stone saw half a dozen pieces of matched luggage piled to one side of the front door. The detectives were shown to a small sitting room, and, as they sat down, the maid opened the door to another man, who began removing the baggage.

A moment later, there was the click of high heels on the marble floor of the entrance hall, and Sasha Nijinsky walked into the sitting room.

As the detectives got to their feet, Stone was swept with an overwhelming sense of relief that made him light-headed.

“I’m Ellen Balfour,” Sasha Nijinsky said. “How may I help you?”

Something is wrong here, Stone thought. Relief began to be replaced by panic.

“Well?” the woman said into the stunned silence.

“Aren’t you…” Stone couldn’t get the words out.

“Oh, I see,” the woman said, nodding her beautiful head gravely. “It’s the third time this week I’ve been mistaken for her.”

“Oh, shit,” Dino said, involuntarily, then recovered himself.

The woman turned and looked at him.

“Excuse me, please,” Dino pled.

“I wonder, Mrs. Balfour, if you have some personal identification?” Stone said, hoping against hope that this woman was Nijinsky and hiding it. “Something with a photograph?”

The woman opened her handbag and produced a New York driver’s license with a very nice picture.

“I can only apologize for the intrusion,” Stone said, returning the license to her. “A gentleman turned up at the precinct this morning and reported having seen Sasha Nijinsky.”

“I’ll bet it was the man from the Harvard Club last night,” she said.

“It was.”

“He looked as if he’d seen a ghost.”

“He was very certain. He’d met Miss Nijinsky only a couple of weeks ago.”

“I’ve been putting up with this for years,” Mrs. Balfour said, “and I’ve resisted changing my hair, but now I’m just going to have to go for a new look, I guess. And after the newspaper stories this morning, I’m getting out of town.”

“I don’t blame you,” Stone said.

“If you get any reports of sightings in the Hamptons, please ignore them,” Ellen Balfour said. “My husband doesn’t think this is funny anymore.”

Back in the car, neither detective spoke until they were nearly back to the precinct.

“I guess we’d better get into Sasha’s financial records,” Stone said finally.