LADY HELEN had never really thought about how much her self-confidence was tied up in a daily bath. Having been forbidden that simple luxury, she had become ridiculously consumed by a need to bathe that was thwarted by Sergeant Havers’ simple, “Sorry. I have to stay with you and I should guess you’d rather not have me scrubbing your back.” As a result, she felt at odds with herself, like a woman forced to wear skin that was not her own.
At least they had compromised on makeup, although seeing to her face under the watchful eye of the detective sergeant made Lady Helen distinctly uncomfortable, as if she were a mannequin on display. This feeling increased while she dressed, pulling on clothing that first came to hand without the least regard for what it was or how it looked upon her. She knew only the cool movement of silk, the scratchy pull of wool. As to what the garments were, as to whether they matched one another or were a battle of colours taking her appearance down to perdition, she could not have said.
And all the time she could hear St. James, Lynley, and Inspector Macaskin in the next room. They were not talking at any particular volume, yet she heard them with ease. So she wondered what on earth she would tell them when they asked her-as they no doubt would-why she had never managed to hear a single sound in the night from Joy Sinclair. She was still pondering this question when Sergeant Havers opened the second door to let St. James and Lynley into the room.
She turned to face them. “What a mess I am, Tommy,” she said with a cheerful smile. “You must swear by every sartorial god there is that you’ll never tell anyone I was wearing a dressing gown and slippers at four in the afternoon.”
Without answering, Lynley stopped by an armchair. It was high-backed, upholstered in a pattern that matched the room’s wallpaper-roses on cream-and set on an angle three feet from the door. He appeared to be examining it for no particular reason and at some considerable length. Then he bent, and from behind it he picked up a man’s black tie which he laid across the back of the chair with steady deliberation. With a final look round the room, he nodded at Sergeant Havers, who opened her notebook. At all this, Lady Helen’s additional score of light-hearted preliminary remarks, designed to break through the professional reticence that she had encountered from Lynley in the library, died a sudden death. He had the upper hand. Lady Helen saw in an instant how he meant to use it.
“Sit down, Helen.” When she would have chosen another place, he said, “At the table, please.”
Like the arrangement of furniture in Joy Sinclair’s room, the table was placed beneath a bay window, the curtains undrawn. Darkness had fallen quickly outside, and the pane reflected both ghostly reflections and gold streaks of lamplight from the bedside table against the far wall. A cobwebbing of frost patterned itself against the window outside, and Lady Helen knew that if she put her hand to the glass, it would feel burning cold, like a clear sheet of ice.
She walked to one of the chairs. They were eighteenth-century pieces upholstered in yet unfaded tapestry bearing a mythological scene. Lady Helen knew she should recognise the young man and nymph-like woman who reached out to each other in the pastoral set-ting-indeed, she knew that Lynley himself probably did. But whether it was Paris eager for the promised reward after rendering judgement, or Echo pining for Narcissus, she could not have said. And more, at the moment, she didn’t particularly care.
Lynley joined her at the table. His eyes rested on the telling items that covered it: a bottle of cognac, an overfull ashtray, and a Delft plate of oranges, one partially peeled but then discarded, yet still exuding a faint citrus scent. He took these in as Sergeant Havers pulled the dressing table’s stool over to join them and St. James made a slow circuit of the room.
Lady Helen had seen St. James work a hundred times before. She knew how unlikely it was that any detail would escape him. Yet, watching his familiar routine directed at her this time, she felt a tightening of muscles as she witnessed him engage in a cursory examination of the tops of chest of drawers and dressing table, of wardrobe and floor. It was like a violation, and when he threw back the covers of her unmade bed and ran his eyes speculatively over the sheets, her self-control snapped.
“My God, Simon, is that absolutely necessary?”
None of them answered. But their silence was enough. And the combination of having been locked up for nearly nine hours like a common criminal and sitting here now while they proposed to question her dispassionate-ly-as if they were not all three tied together by years of pain and friendship-caused anger to swell like a tumour within her. She fought against it with limited success. Her eyes moved back to Lynley, and she made herself ignore the sounds of St. James’ movement in the room behind her.
“Tell us about the row that occurred last night.”
From their behaviour, Lady Helen had expected Lynley’s first question to concern itself with the bedroom. This unexpected start took her by surprise, disarming her momentarily as he no doubt intended.
“I wish I could. All I know for certain is that it involved the play Joy Sinclair was writing. Lord Stinhurst and she had a terrible quarrel about it. Joanna Ellacourt was furious as well.”
“Why?”
“From what I could gather, the play Joy brought with her for this weekend run-through was considerably different from the play that everyone signed on to do in London. She did announce at dinner that she’d made a few changes here and there, but evidently the changes were far more extensive than anyone was prepared for. It was still a murder mystery, but little else was the same. So the argument grew from there.”
“When did all this occur?”
“We’d gone into the sitting room to do a read-through of the script. The quarrel broke out not five minutes into it. It was so odd, Tommy. They’d hardly begun when Francesca-Lord Stinhurst’s sister-absolutely leaped to her feet, as if she’d had the most dreadful shock of her life. She began shouting at Lord Stinhurst, saying something like, ‘No! Stuart, stop her!’ and then she tried to get out of the room. Only she became confused, or lost her way, because she backed directly into a large curio cabinet and smashed it to pieces. I can’t think how she managed not to cut herself to shreds in the process, but she didn’t.”
“What was everyone else doing?”
Lady Helen sketched out each person’s behaviour as best she remembered it: Robert Gabriel staring at Stuart Rintoul, Lord Stinhurst, obviously waiting for him either to deal with Joy or to go to his sister’s aid; Irene Sinclair growing pale to the very lips as the situation escalated; Joanna Ellacourt fl inging her script down and stalking out of the room in a rage, followed a moment later by her husband David Sydeham; Joy Sinclair smiling across the walnut reading table at Lord Stinhurst, and that smile apparently fi ring him into action so that he jumped to his feet, grabbed her arm, and dragged her into the morning room next door, slamming the door behind them. Lady Helen concluded with:
“And then Elizabeth Rintoul went after her aunt Francesca. She appeared…it was hard to tell, but she may have been crying, which seems a bit out of character for her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Elizabeth seems to have given up crying some time ago,” Lady Helen replied. “She’s given up on lots of things, I think. Joy Sinclair, among them. They used to be close friends, from what Rhys told me.”
“You haven’t mentioned what he did after the read-through,” Lynley pointed out. But he gave her no time to answer, saying instead, “Stinhurst and Joy Sinclair had the quarrel by themselves, then? The others weren’t involved?”