Dino handed him a large glass of orange juice. “Come on, wake up.”

Stone took the orange juice. “This must be what it’s like to be married.”

“Are you kidding?” Dino asked. “The day you get married is the last day you’ll ever get breakfast in bed.”

“I’m not in bed,” Stone said, sipping the orange juice.

“Close enough. What’s your plan for the day?”

“I’m planning for you to solve all my problems,” Stone said.

“Okay, I can do that. Not Arrington, of course, or Sarah; you’ll have to handle those yourself, though of course, I’ll be there with lots of advice.”

“I’d rather not hear it,” Stone said, digging into his scrambled eggs.

“Man, these are really terrific eggs,” Dino said. “How do they get them like this?”

“I asked about that,” Stone replied. “Seems they cook them very slowly, with a lot of butter, in a saucepan, not a skillet, and they serve them on a hot plate, very soft, since they continue to cook on the plate.”

“No kidding? I’ll have to get Mary Ann to do them that way.”

“Lots of luck. Your wife doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would spend the early moments of her morning making you English scrambled eggs.”

“Who would have thought the English could cook?”

“Someone, I think it was George Bernard Shaw, once said that you could eat very well in England, as long as you have breakfast three times a day.” Stone was waking up now.

Dino laughed. “I gotta remember that one.”

“Don’t bother; it isn’t true anymore; the Brits cook very well indeed these days. Okay, how are you going to solve all my problems?”

“I slept on your problems,” Dino said, “and I think you can best solve them by leaving London and going back to New York. That would remove you from the evil influence of the people around you in this town.”

“They aren’t all evil,” Stone replied.

“No? Name me one person you know in London that you can prove not to be evil.”

“They’re innocent until proven guilty,” Stone said.

“Only in a court of law; in the court of my law, every fucking one of them is guilty of something.”

“Demonstrate, please.”

“Okay, let’s take Bartholomew: Do you have any doubt that he’s an evil son of a bitch?”

Stone thought about it for a moment. “No,” he said, “none.”

“And you’re working for him. How about Lance?”

“Well, I think he may be mixed up in those two murders; and maybe a lot more, as well.”

“Same for Sarah, except it’s just one murder,” Dino said. “Who’s left?”

“Well, there’s Erica and Monica, the sisters.”

“Okay, I guess there have to be some innocent bystanders, but I’m not going to count on it.”

“And there’s Arrington.”