“That’s an interesting observation, Mr. Hart,” said a new voice.

Damon looked around to see Hiru Yamanaka, who was coming through the doorway waving his ID card at all and sundry.

“You got here very quickly,” said Rachel Trehaine, her eyes narrowing slightly with awful suspicion.

“So we did,” Yamanaka agreed. “That’s because we weren’t very far away. Mr. Hart is right, Miss Praill—we do have some other questions to ask you, but we certainly won’t be bringing any charges against you and we’ll take much better care of you this time. You, Mr. Hart, are under arrest.”

“For what?” Damon demanded, blurting the question out with frank amazement. “You don’t reallythink I’m Conrad Helier, enemy of mankind, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” the inspector said equably. “In fact, I’m certain that you’re not, but I do have reason to think that you have information relevant to an ongoing murder inquiry, and perhaps to the whereabouts of a man we’re currently seeking in that connection.”

Damon felt horror clutch at his stomach. The mirror man had said that his side in the dispute hadn’t killed anyone—but there was no way to know how many lies the mirror man had told. “Silas is dead?” he said, leaping to what seemed to be the obvious conclusion.

“We still have no information as to the whereabouts or well-being of Dr. Arnett,” Yamanaka said, taking no satisfaction from his own punctiliousness. “The inquiry in question is into the murder of Surinder Nahal. We are holding your friend Diana Caisson as a possible accomplice, and we are making every effort to locate our chief suspect, Madoc Tamlin—who is, I believe, currently in your employ.”

Damon was lost for words. He didn’t know whether to be more alarmed by the fact that Diana was in custody or the fact that Madoc—who evidently wasn’t—had somehow been fingered for a murder he surely couldn’t have committed. He had thought himself dazed and confused before, but he was doubly so now. “Oh shit,” he murmured, in lieu of anything meaningful to say.

Yamanaka was looking at the short length of chain dangling from Damon’s wrist, as if regretting that Rachel Trehaine had taken the trouble to have it cut. “Please come with me, Mr. Hart,” he said. “I think it’s time you told us everything you know about this matter. We’re rather tired of people playingwith us.”

For a fleeting second, Damon wondered whether the man from Interpol might be right—but only for a fleeting second. By the time he consented to be led away, he was already rehearsing the half-truths and evasions he would have to deploy. Whatever kind of game this was, he didn’t think Interpol could possibly win it. He didn’t even think they could be reckoned as serious players, although Inspector Yamanaka obviously didn’t see things that way.

Damon was taken to one of two waiting cars. Sergeant Rolfe was beside it, holding the rear door open. While Damon climbed in, Hiru Yamanaka went around the other side and took the seat next to him. Rolfe slammed the door shut and walked away, escorting Catherine Praill to the second car.

“I suppose you got a note pushed under your door too,” Damon said to Yamanaka as the car pulled away.

“We put Ms. Trehaine under discreet surveillance after you went to see her,” the inspector told him mildly. “We were taking an interest in all your movements, and the call you paid on Ahasuerus stood out as one of the least expected.”

“Where were you when Steve Grayson kidnapped me?” Damon asked sourly.

“Again, not as far away as you might have thought. Unfortunately, we lost sight of you temporarily. We feared for your safety, having seen the message which was put out on the Web shortly after you and Mr. Grayson took off—and even more so when Rajuder Singh satisfied us that you really had been taken from the island by force. Do you wish to press charges against Grayson and Singh, by the way? We didn’t have enough evidence to arrest them without your testimony, but we’re still keeping an open file on the matter.”

“That’s okay,” Damon said drily. “They thought they were acting in my best interests, and perhaps they were. Best to let it alone—Karol is my foster father, after all.” As an afterthought, he added: “They wereworking for Karol, weren’t they?”

“I believe so,” the Interpol man confirmed. “We checked their records, of course. Rajuder Singh’s is unblemished to a degree that’s rather remarkable in such an old man. He’s an ecological engineer and has been for well over a century. He knew your father quite well, although that was a long time ago.”

Damon didn’t respond to that item of delicately trailed bait. When the silence had lasted five or six seconds, Yamanaka spoke again in an awkward manner to which he was plainly unaccustomed. “I ought to inform you that there was an unfortunate incident shortly after you left Molokai—an explosion aboard the Kite. Rescuers picked up a dozen survivors, but there was no sign of Karol Kachellek.”

Damon turned to look at him, feeling that insult was being heaped upon injury. “Karol?” he said helplessly. Numbly, he noted that the Interpol man had said “incident” rather than “accident.”

“I’m afraid so,” Yamanaka said. “It seems probable that he’s dead, although no body has been found.”

“Murdered?”

“We don’t know that. The investigation is continuing.”

“Am I a suspect in that investigation too?” Damon asked abrasively. “Do you think I went to Molokai to plant a bomb on my foster father’s boat?” He didn’t expect an answer to that and he didn’t get one, so he quickly changed tack. “Is Eveline okay?”

“So far as we know,” the man from Interpol said, with a slight sigh that might have been relief at the opportunity to impart some good news. “I’m very concerned, though, for the safety of Silas Arnett. If you have any information regarding the identity of the persons responsible for his abduction I implore you to tell me without delay. We’ve now received several communications from someone who claims to be the realOperator one-oh-one, disowning all the recent notices posted under that alias. It’s difficult to confirm her story, of course, but given that she’s incriminating herself I’m inclined to believe her. It has always seemed to me that this business could not be the work of Eliminators, unless some powerful organization had suddenly decided to commit its resources to the cause of Elimination. I find that hard to believe.”

“How old is the woman who claims to be the original Operator one-oh-one?” Damon asked curiously.

“She’s a hundred and five now,” Yamanaka told him, “but that’s a side issue. My most urgent concern is the safety of Silas Arnett. Now that those confessions have been released. . . .”

“They were fakes,” Damon told him.

“Painfully obvious fakes,” Yamanaka agreed, “which could easily have been made without Dr. Arnett’s active involvement. That’s what worries me. If his kidnappers didn’t actually need him, but only needed to remove him from the scene, they might have killed him before they removed him from his house. Now that we’ve found Dr. Nahal’s body, there seems to be more than adequate cause for concern.”

“You don’t really think I had anything to do with that, do you?” Damon asked gruffly.

“You commissioned Madoc Tamlin to look for Dr. Nahal.

When the local police discovered Tamlin at the murder scene he attacked them with a crowbar and ran away.”

“I commissioned Madoc to collect some information,” Damon said defensively. “I can’t believe he’d involve himself in a murder—that’s not his style at all. You can’tbe serious about holding Diana as an accomplice.”

The man from Interpol wouldn’t confirm or deny his seriousness. Instead, he said: “Dr. Arnett’s supposed confession was an interesting statement, wasn’t it? Food for thought for everyone—and food which will be all the more eagerly swallowed for being dressed up that way.”