“The stone, of course.”
“Of course. And also, of course, he did not believe me when I said I did not have it. He told me they would give me a day in which to get hold of it, and when they got in touch with me again they would tell me what to do with it. Then he let me talk to Mary. She said she was all right, but she sounded scared. I told him not to hurt her, and I promised to look for it. Then I started searching. I looked through everything that I have. No stone. Then I tried your place. I still have my key.”
“Anybody there toasting the Queen?”
“No signs of your visitors at all. Then I proceeded to look for the stone in every possible place. Finally, I gave up. It’s just gone, that’s all.”
He grew silent. We twisted along the narrow road, occasional glimpses of the sea appearing through gaps in the foliage off to my left/his right.
“So?” I said. “What then?”
“He called again the next day, asked if I had it. I told him I did not-and he said they were going to kill Mary. I pleaded with him, said I’d do anything-“
“Wait. You did not call the police?”
He shook his head.
“He told me not to-the first time that we talked. Any sort of police involvement, he said, and I would never see her again. I thought about calling the cops, but I was scared. If I called the police and he found out … I just couldn’t take the chance. What would you have done?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But go ahead. What happened next?”
“He asked me if I knew where you were, said you could probably help find it-“
“Ha! Sorry. Go on.”
“Again, I had to tell him I did not know but that I was expecting to hear from you soon. He said they would give me another day to find the stone or to find you. Then he hung up. Later, I thought about the stones in Paul’s lab, got to wondering whether any of them were still there. If they were, why not try to pass one off as the real thing? They were obviously good fakes. The man who made them had even been fooled by one himself for a time. I was able to force the lock and get into his lab later in the day. I was desperate enough to try anything. There were four of them on the shelf, and I took the one you are holding now. I took it home with me and I waited. He phoned me again this morning-right before you called-and I told him I had come across it in the bottom of an old trunk. He sounded happy then. He even let me talk to Mary again and she said she was still okay. He told me where to take the stone, said they would meet me and make the exchange-her for it.”
“And that is where we are headed now?”
“Yes. I would not have involved you needlessly, but they seemed so convinced that you were something of an authority on the thing that when you called it occurred to me that if you were there to corroborate my story there would be no question as to the stone’s authenticity. I didn’t like involving you this way, but it is a matter of life and death.”
“Yeah. They may kill us all.”
“Why should they? They will have what they want. It would be pointless to harm us.”
“Witnesses,” I said.
“To what? It would be our word against theirs that the incident even occurred. There is no record of it, no evidence of a kidnaping or anything else. Why jeopardize the status quo by killing people and starting a homicide investigation?”
“The whole thing stinks, that’s why. We do not have sufficient facts to decide what may or may not be motivating them.”
“What else was I to do? Call the police and take a chance they might not be bluffing?”
“I already said that I don’t know. But at the risk of sounding ignoble, you might have left me out of this.”