As Stone reached for the second volume, an incredibly bright light blinded him.

“Get out of the way!” a man’s voice shouted, and Stone was pushed roughly aside.

“I disconnected volume one,” Stone said, blinking rapidly, trying to see something, anything. “I didn’t have time to get to volume two.” He sat up and he could make out, blurrily, the shape of a uniformed policeman bending over the book.

“Got it,” the man said, setting down his large flashlight, then half a second later the display in his hand lighted up. “Jesus God,” he muttered to himself. “Why didn’t it ring?”

“Because,” Stone said, “we’re in a dead zone, courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.” He got out his cell phone, tapped it, and showed it to the policeman.

“I want one of those,” the man said.

60

Chief Inspector Holmes stepped into the room behind Stone and the policemen. “Good evening,” he said.

“It is now,” Stone replied. “Thank you for coming.”

The policeman next to him was inspecting the two bombs. “I reckon,” he said, almost to himself, “that if one of these had gone off it would have blown out the windows and destroyed everything in the room, including the paneling.”

“And what,” Holmes asked, “would the effect have been if they had both gone off?”

“Then, I believe, the resulting blast would have removed this corner of the house, upstairs and down, from the main building and distributed it around the lawns.”

“Any idea who might have wished you distributed around the lawns, Stone?” Holmes asked.

Stone picked up one of the volumes and showed him the binder’s name on the spine. “This gentleman, I believe. He has a shop in the Burlington Arcade in London called Literary Antiquities, with a bindery in the basement. Beautiful work, isn’t it?”

“The binding or the bomb?” Holmes queried.

“Take your pick.”

“Odd that he would stamp his name on an instrument of murder,” Holmes observed.

“I think he probably bound the books first, then decided to use them to house the bomb. In any case, his name on the spine would not have survived a detonation.”

“Was he working alone, do you think?”

“The man is a spy for the Russians, and he’s working with half their London embassy,” Stone replied.

“And how did you come to know this?” Holmes asked.

Stone reached into a bedside drawer and found one of his new business cards.

Holmes digested the information thereon. “I see,” he said, though he clearly didn’t.

“I’ve been a consultant for them for a number of years,” Stone said, “but recently I’ve been sort of promoted.”

“And the Russians knew about this?”

“It’s public knowledge,” Stone said, “though it hasn’t been formally announced. I think the Agency thought that those who needed to know would find out in the normal course of events.”

Felicity and Rose appeared in the doorway, back in their dinner dresses.