52

STONE SANK HEAVILY INTO AN ARMCHAIR in the drawing room.

“Explain,” Carpenter said.

“Lance transferred all the money out of the account yesterday, to a bank in Hong Kong.”

“How could he do that?”

“Apparently, he had access to my account.”

Carpenter stared at him. “Did you sign the account application, then give it back to Lance?”

“Yes.”

“Then he simply added his own signature to the document. Did he know your code?”

“I wrote it on the form. How could I have been so stupid?”

“An expensive oversight,” Carpenter said.

“I could get the Hong Kong account number, and we could trace the funds,” Stone said.

Carpenter shook her head. “Remember the time difference; Cabot has had plenty of opportunity to retransfer the funds half a dozen times; he was probably at it all night. We’d never find it.”

“But your people will reimburse me?”

“I can’t make any promises; my management are likely to take a dim view of all this.”

“I worked very hard to earn that money,” Stone said, though he’d really made it in the market. “You can’t let them hang me out to dry.”

“If it were our funds he’d stolen, that would be one thing, but your funds are quite another.” She looked at her watch. “We have to get going,” she said.

“To where?”

“To Wiltshire; obviously, the timetable has been accelerated. I hope we’re not too late.”

Stone grabbed a tie and his suit jacket and they met downstairs.

“We’ll take your Jaguar,” Carpenter said. “But you can’t go,” she said to Dino.

“I go where he goes,” Dino replied.

Carpenter looked at Stone, who nodded. “Oh, all right. Let’s get out of here,” she said.

Carpenter drove, fast and expertly.

Stone glanced at the speedometer, which was glued to a hundred and twenty miles an hour. “Aren’t you worried about being stopped by the police?”

“The number plate is a special one; they’ll know to leave us alone,” she replied. She fished her cellphone out of her bag and dialed a number, driving with one hand, making Stone nervous. “It’s Carpenter,” she said. “Cabot has bolted with Barrington’s money, we don’t know where. We have to assume that his timetable has changed. I’m on the way, and I’ll be there in an hour.” She punched off.

Stone called the Farm Street house again. Erica answered.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’ve had three double espressos, but I’m still a little fuzzy around the edges.”

“Write down this number,” Stone said, and gave her his cellphone number. “If Lance should call, tell him I called and want to speak to him urgently. When he hangs up, you call me immediately.”

“What’s going on, Stone?” Erica asked.