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comfortable for a moment,” the woman said. She spoke with a rather heavy accent. “Mr. Barrington will be with you quick.”
    “Thank you,” Amanda said, taking one of a pair of leather wing chairs before the window.
    “I’ll get some tea,” the woman replied, then left.
    Amanda stood up and had a look around the room. It contained a great deal of original oak paneling, in addition to the bookcases, and there was an antique Persian rug on the floor, with old-fashioned parquet showing around its edges. A leather-topped walnut desk occupied a corner, and there were a number of silver-framed photographs on a shelf beside the desk, of people Amanda assumed to be Barrington’s father and mother. On the wall behind the desk were three good-sized oils, all New York scenes, that Amanda would have bought on the spot. They were, she realized, all by Matilda Stone, who, she knew, had died fairly young and had left only around fifty canvases, all in private hands. She wondered what these three might be worth.
     
    Stone Barrington finished his phone call and hung up. “Alma,” he called to his secretary, “I’m going upstairs to meet my four o’clock; hold all my calls.”
    “Right, Stone,” Alma called back from her adjacent office.
    Stone climbed the spiral staircase that led to the rear hall of the first floor of the house and entered his study. A tall, handsome, beautifully dressed and coiffed woman, who appeared to be in her early forties, stood before his desk, looking at his mother’s paintings. “Good afternoon,” he said.
    She did not turn around immediately, but went on looking at the paintings. “I don’t suppose I’ve seen more than a dozen of her pictures in my whole life,” she said, “but I’ve loved every one of them.”
    “Thank you; she’d be pleased to have the compliment.”
    She turned and walked toward him, holding out her hand. “I’m Amanda Dart.”
    He took her hand. “I’m Stone Barrington; won’t you sit down?”
    They each took a wing chair and, as if on cue, the servant appeared with a silver tray containing a matching teapot, two cups and saucers, and a plate with several slices of pound cake and some cookies.
    “This is my housekeeper, Helene,” Stone said. “She makes the best pound cake on the Eastern Seaboard.”
    “In the Western Hemisphere,” Helene said blithely.
    “Helene is Greek; humility does not come easily to her.”
    “And what would I have to be humble about?” Helene asked. “You bet not my pound cake.”
    Amanda smiled appreciatively. She wanted the strange woman to be gone. “Tell me about this house,” she said, so they’d have something to talk about while Helene poured. Anyway, she was interested.
    “Of course. It was built in the eighteen-nineties by the father of my great-aunt on my father’s side. I suppose that makes him my great-grandfather? The architect was a man named Ehrick Rossiter, who worked from the eighteen-seventies through the nineteen-thirties.”
    “He had an eye for proportion,” Amanda said, looking around the room.
    “Yes, and he filled the house with interesting detail. I’ll give you the tour someday, when you have the time.”
    “Thank you, I’d love that, but not today. Did you choose the furnishings?”
    “About half of them, I suppose. The rest came down from family or were in the house when my great-aunt left it to me.”
    “You’re very fortunate in your family’s tastes.”
    “I am.”
    “Has Bill Eggers told you why I’m here?”
    “No, he said he’d let you explain everything.”
    Amanda opened her alligator bag and handed him the scandal sheet. “Recently, I had a weekend in Saint Bart’s; the day of my return this was sent to at least several dozen fax machines around the city—perhaps farther abroad, who knows?” She waited while Stone read it.
    “Where were these photographs taken?” he asked.
    “At a hotel in Manhattan.”
    “What is it that you’d like me to do for you, Ms.