“I guess I slept a little too well,” he said. “Have you and Dino had breakfast?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

Stone picked up the phone and ordered breakfast for one.

“Where’s Rose?”

“She had to go back to the hospital in London,” Stone said, handing her the note.

Viv read it, then pulled up a chair next to his bed and sat down. “I’m not surprised,” she said. She picked up the brandy glass on his bedside table and sniffed it.

“Why not?”

“Do you recall our conversation of yesterday? Rose’s and mine?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I was suspicious of some of the things she said, so I did some checking.”

“Checking what?”

“To begin with, St. George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner closed in the late eighties and moved to South London, to a place charmingly called Tooting. I called them, and they have no record of a Dr. Rose McGill. The building at Hyde Park Corner, which was a stately home called Lanesborough House before it was a hospital, was renovated, redone, and reopened as a hotel of that name in 1991. It’s said to be the most expensive in London.”

“That’s odd,” Stone said.

“Also, the county of Rutland is not the smallest in the country, as Rose stated. The Isle of Wight is.”

“You’d think Rose would have known that, wouldn’t you?”

“I would. I also had a check done of the property records in Rutland, going back a couple hundred years, and there is not now nor has there ever been a farm in the county owned by a family named McGill, Rose’s name. Indeed, there is only one McGill family in all of Rutland. They have operated a betting parlor in Oakham for four generations and do not have a family member named Rose.”

“Viv, I believe you’re telling me that I have been had, in some sort of way.”

“It would seem so.”

“Maybe.” Stone picked up his phone, found Felicity’s number, and called her.

“Good morning, Stone,” she said, after her call had been screened.

“Good morning, Felicity,” he replied. “I wonder if you could check something for me.”

“I’ll try.”

“Can you consult your records and see if MI-6 has an employee named Rose McGill?”

“One moment,” she said. He could hear the tapping of computer keys. “Now,” she said, “security regulations prevent me from confirming the name of an employee. However, I don’t believe there is a regulation that prevents me from denying that such an employee exists. In fact, we often make such denials. I can, though, tell you honestly that we have no record of an employee by that name.”

“You recall meeting her at dinner?”

“Of course. I’m not denying her existence, just her employment. You met her at Station Two, did you not?”

“I did.”

“How?”

“She came into the ward while I was being examined by another doctor.”

“What was his name?”