Free Lucid Intervals (2010) by Stuart - Stone Barrington 18 Woods Page A

you.”
    “Please sit, gentlemen,” Felicity said.
    They sat.
    “Mr. Barrington, Mr. Smith is in possession of more knowledge of Stanley Whitestone than I, being his contemporary. I thought it might be useful for the two of you to meet.”
    “I hope so,” Stone replied.
    “Mr. Barrington,” Smith said, “what questions do you have regarding Mr. Whitestone?”
    “Why don’t we start at the beginning?” Stone said. “Please tell me in as much detail as possible of the first time you met Stanley Whitestone.”
    Smith looked at Felicity and got a nod from her, then turned back to Stone and began.

17
    S mith gazed at the ceiling for a moment. “We were nine years old,” he said, “and we were at Eton. He impressed me immediately.”
    “How so?” Stone asked.
    “He was very bright and quick and had an acerbic wit, especially for a nine-year-old.”
    “Go on.”
    “He excelled in his studies and on the playing field, both without seeming to try very hard.”
    Stone knew that, among the British, not seeming to try very hard was admirable. “What sports did he play?”
    “Cricket, track—he was a sprinter—and he was good on horse-back. I believe he had grown up with his own horse.”
    “Anything else from the Eton years that might be of help in identifying him?”
    Smith thought for a moment. “He suffered a fall from a horse and acquired a cut on his forehead,” he said, pointing to a spot high over his right eyebrow. “Needed stitches. Left a thin line of a scar about two inches long.”
    Stone took the photograph of Whitestone from his pocket, looked at it and handed it to Smith. “Do you see it here?”
    Smith checked. “No,” he said.
    “He had it removed, then?”
    “Possibly. Or it may have moved into his hairline as he grew up. I can’t think of anything else that might identify him now. After we left Eton I was at Oxford, and he was at Cambridge. I saw him two or three times at parties in London, then not again until I . . . became employed as a civil servant.”
    “Did you join the service at the same time?”
    “No, I did two years of National Service, which he seemed to have avoided, so he was senior to me when I came aboard.”
    Felicity spoke up. “Whitestone attended Cambridge as a King’s Scholar,” she said, “after being recruited his first semester. It was arranged that he did his National Service with us.”
    Smith seemed a bit miffed. “I rather thought it was something like that,” he said. “I was recruited out of the army.”
    Stone kept himself from laughing at this display of jealousy. “What were your impressions of him at the time of your joining?”
    “Much the same as at Eton,” Smith said, “only by that time he had acquired considerable charm. Perhaps that happened at Cambridge.”
    Felicity consulted a file on her desk. “Whitestone joined the theater group there and became adept at comedy. A number of his contemporaries went on to become professional actors, and half a dozen of them did very well. He had that opportunity but was already committed to us.”
    “Then I would assume that he learned about makeup and disguise in the theater group,” Stone said.
    “A logical assumption,” Felicity replied. “He made good use of that knowledge in the field.”
    Stone turned back to Smith. “Why did you dislike Whitestone?” he asked.
    “Dislike?” Smith asked.
    “All right, hate,” Stone said.
    Smith said nothing.
    “Answer him,” Felicity said.
    “I tend to distrust people who have too much charm,” said Smith, who seemed to have very little himself.
    “Did he advance in the service faster than you?” Stone asked.
    “I told you, he was two years ahead of me; naturally, he would have been promoted sooner.”
    “Did your record of advancement match his?”
    Smith scratched an itch on his forehead. “I don’t think anyone advanced as quickly as he.”
    “Was he considered a candidate for . . . top management?” Stone asked.
    “I would have