Stone unscrewed the cap and pushed it onto the other end of the pen. Then he thought of something Lance had said. They had found a fountain pen in Wilfred Thomas’s workshop, one that administered a poison, much like one the CIA has developed. It also occurred to him that there was something, he wasn’t sure what, familiar about Mr. Willis. “Oops!” he said, allowing the pen to slip from his fingers and bounce off his tray table to the floor. “I’m sorry, that was clumsy of me.”

“Not to worry,” Willis said, taking some tissues from Stone’s bedside and walking around to the other side of the bed to retrieve the pen.

Then Stone remembered something he had forgotten: he had seen Wilfred Thomas in the video that Lance’s people had made of the party at the Russian embassy, and without the glasses and the Vandyke, Willis could be Thomas. It was the hairline that pegged it for him. Stone slipped out of bed and stood facing the man. “Your mustache is slipping,” he lied.

The man reflexively raised a hand to stick it back on.

“Only joking, Mr. Thomas,” Stone said, looking about him for a weapon. “By the way, my compliments on the handsome bindings on The Short OED.” The only weapons Stone could use were the rolling tray table and a visitor’s chair, and he wasn’t sure he could lift the table, since one arm was out of action. “I’m glad your bomb-making talent doesn’t match your binding skills.”

Thomas picked up the pen, holding it between two fingers with tissues.

Was he going to shoot poison at him? Bullets? Would it explode? Stone looked for the button to call the nurse, but it was on Thomas’s side of the bed.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Thomas said, seemingly uncertain of his next move.

Stone got hold of his visitor’s chair at the end of the bed and was pleased that it weighed much less than the table. He placed it on the bed, between him and Thomas, and held it, lion-tamer style. “I think your best bet is to make a run for it,” Stone said, hoping the man would take his advice.

Instead, Thomas got a grip on the end of the pen and held it before him, as if it were a knife.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in!” Stone yelled.

The door opened, and Felicity stood there, wearing a business suit with her handbag over her left arm.

“How good to see you, Felicity,” Stone said. “May I introduce you to the Earl of Chelsea, aka Wilfred Thomas? I believe you are armed. Would you shoot him, please?”

Felicity began digging into her handbag, and Stone picked up the chair and threw it at Thomas’s head, which connected, knocking him to the floor, sending his glasses flying, and putting his mustache genuinely askew.