“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 had to be above him to know that,” Smith said, looking pointedly at Felicity.
“Probably,” Felicity said. “I was junior to him, but-to use an American term-the scuttlebutt was that he was headed for the top.”
“Did he leave abruptly?” Stone asked.
Felicity answered. “He didn’t turn up at the office one day, and later that morning the interoffice post delivered a one-sentence letter of resignation to the director.”
“Have you seen the letter?” Stone asked.
“It’s in his file.”
“Was it profane or disrespectful?”
“I believe he told the director to get stuffed.”
Stone couldn’t help laughing. “Mr. Smith, where were you at the time of Whitestone’s… departure?”