“I wasn’t allowed to tell you, and it was important that you didn’t know. In fact, you never would have been involved at all, if I hadn’t been in a situation of, shall we say, temporarily interrupted cash flow. I needed your quarter of a million, which you very kindly supplied, and you made a very tidy profit from the arrangement. Where else could you have gotten a return of four hundred percent in less than thirty days?”

“Everybody was lying to me, especially Hedger.”

“Hedger is dead. Did I mention that?”

Stone took a quick breath. “No, you didn’t. Do I want to know how and why? I assume he didn’t keel over of a coronary.”

“No, he was expertly stabbed by somebody who worked for you.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Stone demanded.

“Remember those two retired British cops you hired to follow me around London and bug my house?”

Stone hadn’t known that Lance knew about that, so he said nothing.

“You’ll remember that Hedger’s people beat up one of them very badly, so badly that he later expired.”

“Go on.”

“Well, his mate took exception to that and held Hedger accountable. He knifed him in a mews a short walk from the Connaught, while you were still in London.”

“I didn’t know,” Stone said.

“Scotland Yard hushed it up, the knifer having been one of their own. Had an exemplary military record, too, killing people in the Special Air Services. That detective inspector, Throckmorton—unlikely name, isn’t it?—didn’t think a shady American spook’s life was worth a blip in the happy retirement of one of their former officers.”

“And what did the Agency have to say about that?”

“Almost nothing. Somebody gave Throckmorton a good lunch and received the details. They shook hands and went their separate ways. Hedger is now a star on the memorial in the lobby of the headquarters building at Langley.”

“The more I learn about your business, the less I want to learn about it.”

“You shouldn’t feel badly about Hedger. He was a bad apple; been using his position for years to enrich himself in various underhanded ways, and the Agency was sick of him. Good riddance and no trial or publicity. His death didn’t even make the tabloids, let alone the Times. His alumni newsletter ran a nice obit, though, most of it lies.”

“An ignominious end,” Stone mused.

“In Hedger’s case, deservedly so.”

“What is this legal work you want done? It isn’t illegal work, is it?”

“Oh, no, no, nothing like that. It’s pretty simple, really: A fellow we hired for some contract work got himself into a scrape with the local law, and—”

” The local law where?”

“Right here in Gotham, actually.”

“Go on.”