“Joy had telephoned you?”

“Yes. So I returned the call. This was…it must have been last Monday evening. She asked if Helen Clyde might have the room next to hers.”

“Joy asked for Helen?” Lynley queried sharply. “Asked for her by name?”

Francesca hesitated. Her eyes dropped to the plan of the house, then rose back to meet Lynley’s. “No. Not exactly by name. She merely said that her cousin was bringing a guest and could that guest be given the room next to hers. I suppose I assumed she must have known…” Her voice faltered as Lynley pushed himself away from the table.

He looked from Macaskin to Havers to St. James. There was no point in further procrastination. “I’ll see Davies-Jones now,” he said.

RHYS DAVIES-JONES did not appear to be cowed in the presence of the police, in spite of the escort of Constable Lonan who had followed him like an unfortunate reputation from his room, down the stairs, and right to the door of the sitting room. The Welshman evaluated St. James, Macaskin, Lynley, and Havers with a look entirely straightforward, the deliberate look of a man intent upon showing that he had nothing to hide. A dark horse which had never been thought of… Lynley nodded him to a seat at the table.

“Tell me about last night,” he said.

Davies-Jones gave no perceptible reaction to the question other than to move the liquor bottle out of his line of vision. He played the tips of his fingers round the edge of a packet of Players that he took from his jacket pocket, but he did not light one. “What about last night?”

“About your fingerprints on the key to the door that adjoined Helen’s and Joy’s rooms, about the cognac you brought to Helen, about where you were until one in the morning when you showed up at her door.”

Again, Davies-Jones did not react, either to the words themselves or to the current of hostility that ran beneath them. He answered frankly enough. “I took cognac up to her because I wanted to see her, Inspector. It was stupid of me, a rather adolescent way of getting into her room for a few minutes.”

“It seems to have worked well enough.”

Davies-Jones didn’t respond. Lynley saw that he was determined to say as little as possible. He found himself instantly equally determined to wring every last fact from the man. “And your fingerprints on the key?”

“I locked the door, both doors in fact. We wanted privacy.”

“You entered her room with a bottle of cognac and locked both the doors? Rather a blatant admission of your intentions, wouldn’t you say?”

Davies-Jones’ body tensed fractionally. “That’s not how it happened.”

“Then do tell me how it happened.”

“We talked for a bit about the read-through. Joy’s play was supposed to have brought me back into London theatre after my…trouble, so I was rather upset about the way everything turned out. It was more than a little bit obvious to me that whatever my cousin had in mind in getting us all up here to look at the revisions in her script, putting on a play had little enough to do with it. I was angry at having been used as a pawn in what was clearly some sort of vengeance game Joy was playing against Stinhurst. So Helen and I talked. About the read-through. About what in God’s name I would do from here. Then, when I was going to leave, Helen asked me to stay the night with her. So I locked the doors.” Davies-Jones met Lynley’s eyes squarely. A faint smile touched his lips. “You weren’t expecting it to have happened quite that way, were you, Inspector?”

Lynley didn’t reply. Rather, he pulled the whisky bottle towards him, twisted off its cap, poured himself a drink. The liquor fl ashed through his body satisfactorily. Deliberately, he set the glass down on the table between them, a full inch still in it. At that, Davies-Jones looked away, but Lynley didn’t miss the tight movements of the man’s head, the tension in his neck, traitors to his need. He lit a cigarette with unsteady hands.

“I understand you disappeared right after the read-through, that you didn’t show up again until one in the morning. How do you account for the time? What was it, ninety minutes, nearly two hours?”

“I went for a walk,” Davies-Jones replied.

Had he claimed that he had gone swimming in the loch, Lynley could not have been more surprised. “In a snowstorm? With a wind-chill factor of God only knows how far below freezing, you went for a walk?”

Davies-Jones merely said, “I fi nd walking a good substitute for the bottle, Inspector. I would have preferred the bottle last night, frankly. But a walk seemed like the smarter alternative.”

“Where did you go?”

“Along the road to Hillview Farm.”

“Did you see anyone? Speak to anyone?”

“No,” he replied. “So no one can verify what I’m telling you. I understand that perfectly. Nonetheless, it’s what I did.”

“Then you also understand that as far as I’m concerned you could have spent that time in any number of ways.”

Davies-Jones took the bait. “Such as?”

“Such as collecting what you’d need to murder your cousin.”

The Welshman’s answering smile was contemptuous. “Yes. I suppose I could have. Down the back stairs, through the scullery and kitchen, into the dining room, and I’d have the dirk without anyone seeing me. Sydeham’s glove is a problem, but no doubt you can tell me how I managed to get it without him being the wiser.”

“You seem to know a great deal about the layout of the house,” Lynley pointed out.

“I do. I spent the early part of the afternoon looking it over. I’ve an interest in architecture. Hardly a criminal one, however.”

Lynley fingered the tumbler of whisky, swirling it meditatively. “How long were you in hospital?” he asked.

“Isn’t that a bit out of your purview, Inspector Lynley?”

“Nothing that touches this case is out of my purview. How long were you in hospital for your drinking problem?”

Davies-Jones answered stonily. “Four months.”

“A private hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Costly venture.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? That I stabbed my cousin for her money to pay my bills?”

“Did Joy have money?”

“Of course she had money. She had plenty of money. And you can rest assured she didn’t leave any of it to me.”

“You know the terms of her will, then?”

Davies-Jones reacted to the pressure, to being in the close presence of alcohol, to having been led so expertly into a trap. He stubbed out his cigarette angrily in the ashtray. “Yes, blast you! And she’s left every last pound to Irene and her children. But that’s not what you wanted to hear, is it, Inspector?”

Lynley seized the opportunity he had gained through the other man’s anger. “Last Monday Joy asked Francesca Gerrard that Helen Clyde be given a room next to hers. Do you know anything about that?”

“That Helen…” Davies-Jones reached for his cigarettes, then pushed them away. “No. I can’t explain it.”

“Can you explain how she knew Helen would be with you this weekend?”

“I must have told her. I probably did.”

“And suggested that she might want to get to know Helen? And what better way than by asking to be given adjoining rooms.”

“Like schoolgirls?” Davies-Jones demanded. “Rather transparent for a ruse leading to murder, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m certainly open to your explanation.”

“I don’t bloody have one, Inspector. But my guess is that Joy wanted Helen next to her to act as a buffer, someone without a vested interest in the production, someone who wouldn’t be likely to come tapping at her door, hoping for a chat about line and scene changes. Actors are like that, you know. They generally don’t give a playwright much peace.”

“So you mentioned Helen to her. You planted the idea.”

“I did nothing of the kind. You asked for an explanation. That’s the best I can do.”

“Yes. Of course. Except that it doesn’t hold with the fact that Joanna Ellacourt had the room on the other side of Joy’s, does it? No buffer there. How do you explain it?”