It was a sunny Saturday -- the perfect day for a picnic, actually. And that's what Lucien had planned. A picnic of sorts.

Lucien had told Artemis to meet him on a bench in Central Park not far from the Park entrance at 79th Street and Fifth Avenue. It was far enough into the Park, and far enough out of the way of the paved paths which joggers, strollers, nannies with baby buggies, and Rollerbladers traversed, that it was actually private.

In an act of seeming madness, Artemis, a compulsive mystery-novel reader and frequent visitor to The Mysterious Bookshop on West 56th Street, had devoured enough English country-house murder plots to know at least three ways to poison someone -- and the varying degrees to which you were likely to be discovered, depending on which combination of chemicals you used. And his college chemistry textbooks had been a big help.

Just another day in the park. You know. Hansom cabs colliding with Tour de France bicycles racers at 40 miles an hour. Nannies running after toddlers to make sure the kiddies don't pick up stray rats. Stalkers lurking in the sycamores. And oh yeah. Murder.

But as Saturday had approached, Lucien had realized that his fever-pitch of panic was approaching insanity and that he couldn't possibly go through with his plan. No one watching Lucien sitting in the sun on the wooden park bench would suspect that he had actually intended to poison, and murder, his long-lost brother. Instead, he had decided to appeal to his humanity -- if Artemis had any -- and to try to talk some sense into him.

"Hey," said Artemis, sitting down next to Lucien. "Right on time."

Lucien had been basking calmly in the sun, and opened his eyes with a start to look at his brother.

"D-Day," Artemis said, cryptically, though Lucien caught his meaning.

"Yeah," answered Lucien. "D-Day."

"Today's the day I'm out of your life forever," Artemis said, prophetically. "All you've got to do is hand over the cash and I'm gone. You got it?"

"No," said Lucien, bluntly. "I came to ask you for mercy."

"What?" asked Artemis, practically in shock.

"I said No, I don't have the money."

"Mercy!" Artemis laughed derisively, pulling up the zipper on his cheap leather jacket against the cool breeze that had just come up. "There's a joke for you. What do I care about mercy? When has life ever shown me any?"

"I mean it," said Lucien. "Artemis, you're blackmailing me, and you're a creep for it. I don't want to live with that kind of bitterness in my life. Maybe I even owe you this money, in some sort of karmic way. But I don't have it now. And I don't know how to get it."

"Cut the bull," Artemis said. He didn't even know what "karmic" meant, and he didn't like the strange, cordial demeanor which Lucien had assumed. "Just hand over the money and I'm out of here. What the hell are we doing sitting in freaking Central Park, anyway?"

"Artemis, you're not listening. I don't have it."

Artemis was confused, then surprised, then unnerved, then, infuriated -- all in the space of 10 seconds.

"I don't freakin' believe it," he said, shaking his head, and then looking at Lucien with a look of hatred. "You think you're a classy guy, Allan. I mean Lucien. Whatever. But you're not. You're a criminal. A murderer. And you're gonna pay, big time."

Artemis stood up, walked out of the park to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, fished in his jeans pocket for a subway token, and hopped on the downtown bus.

Lucien's naive attempt to reason with Artemis had failed. Now there was only one thing left to do.

Jim Hillyer felt stupid that he hadn't known if 9-1-1 were something you could dial in London in an emergency -- or if that were a peculiarly American phenomenon. All he'd known for certain was that, when he saw the "HELP ME JIM" message scratched into the wooden chair leg, he had to call the police. So he'd dialed the operator.

With the OOO-WAH, OOO-WAH sound unique to European ambulances and emergency vehicles, a British Ford Escort police car had raced up Half-Moon Street from the direction of Curzon -- rather unnecessarily, Jim thought -- and screeched to a halt in front of Meg Townsend's building. The Scotland Yard inspectors -- whom Jim had expected to be straight out of Masterpiece Theatre, but were, in fact, young, Cockney, and, Jim thought, rather brusque and disrespectful -- had performed the same cursory inspection of the flat that Jim himself had done. What he hadn't expected was to be taken to the precinct for grilling.

"I didn't do it." That's what keeps running through Jim Hillyer's mind. His involvement in Meg Townsend's disappearance is nil. Except that he has been the one to come upon the evidence of her abduction. And, as in a murder investigation, the one who phones the police to report the crime is always the prime suspect, at least at first. But why does Jim feel so guilty?

The police had asked Jim some preliminary, and to-be-expected questions -- who, exactly was he, what was his relationship with Meg Townsend, when had he last talked to her -- and informed him that, contrary to his plans, he couldn't stay in Meg Townsend's flat. They'd taken him back to the flat to get his bags, and he'd checked into Fleming's, a small, British luxury hotel nearby. It's where Jim had always stayed when in London.

The next morning, Jim was awakened by the desk clerk, who informed him that an Inspector Montague was in the lobby, needing to see him. As always, jet lag hit Jim on the second day, and it took an iron will to wake up, throw himself into the shower, shave, dress, and meet the policeman -- whom he'd seen at the station the previous night -- downstairs in the pink-carpeted lobby.

"Good morning, Mr. Hillyer," Montague said politely, and extending his hand.

"Good morning," Jim replied.

They stood in the middle of the small, bustling hotel lobby momentarily, until Montague said, "How about some coffee? The restaurant is just down these steps."

"Great," responded Hillyer. "I'm barely awake."

They walked down the carpeted stairs into a rather stiffly formal dining room decorated entirely in pink chintz. After they'd ordered breakfast and had the usual British rack of cold toast placed in front of them, Montague began.

"I'm afraid I have some rather bad news, Mr. Hillyer."