"Oh yes," she replied. "It's always locked."

"Who has keys to it?"

"I have one key. Mary Agnes has the other."

"And could anyone have seen you going from your room to Joy's? Or going to the office? On either of the two trips?"

"I didn't notice anyone. But I suppose..." She shook her head. "I just don't know."

"But you would have pa.s.sed any number of rooms to make the trips, wouldn't you?"

"Of course, anyone on the main corridor could have seen me if they were up and about. But surely I would have noticed that. Or heard a door opening."

Lynley went to join Macaskin who was already on his feet, examining the floor plan that was still spread out upon the table from their earlier interview with David Sydeham. Four rooms had immediate access to the main corridor besides the rooms belonging to Lady Helen and Joy Sinclair: Joanna Ellacourt and David Sydeham's room, Lord Stinhurst and his wife's, the unused room of Rhys Davies-Jones, and Irene Sinclair's at the junction of the main corridor and the west wing of the house.

"Surely there's truth to what the woman is saying," Macaskin muttered to Lynley as they looked the floor plan over. "Surely she would have heard something, seen something, been alerted to the fact that she was being watched."

"Mrs. Gerrard," Lynley said to her over his shoulder, "are you absolutely certain that Joy's door was locked last night?"

"Of course," she replied. "I thought of sending a note with her tea this morning, to tell her I'd taken the necklace back. Perhaps I really should have. But then-"

"And you did take the keys back to your desk?"

"Yes. Why do you keep asking me about the door?"

"And you locked the desk again?"

"Yes. I know I did that. It's something I always do."

Lynley turned from the table but remained next to it, his eyes on Francesca. "Can you tell me," he asked her, "how Helen Clyde came to be given a room adjoining Joy Sinclair's? Was that coincidental?"

Francesca's hand rose to her beads, an automatic movement, companion to thought. "Helen Clyde?" she repeated. "Was it Stuart who suggested...No. That's not right, is it? Mary Agnes took the call from London. I remember because Mary's spelling is a bit phonetic, and the name she'd written was unfamiliar. I had to get her to say it for me."

"The name?"

"Yes. She'd written down Joyce Encare, which of course made no sense until she said it. Joy Sinclair."

"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 a.s.sumed 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 p.a.w.n 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 G.o.d'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 flashed through his body satisfactorily. Deliberately, he set the gla.s.s 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 G.o.d only knows how far below freezing, you went for a walk?"

Davies-Jones merely said, "I find walking a good subst.i.tute 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 a.s.sured 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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?"

"I don't. I have absolutely no idea what Joy was thinking. Perhaps she had no idea herself. Perhaps it means nothing and you're looking for meaning wherever you can find it."

Lynley nodded, unaffected by the anger in the implication. "Where did you go once everyone was let out of the library this evening?"

"To my room."

"What did you do there?"

"I showered and changed."

"And then?"

Davies-Jones' eyes made their way to the whisky. There was no noise at all save for a rustle from one of the others in the room, Macaskin fishing a roll of mints from his pocket. "I went to Helen."

"Again?" Lynley asked blandly.

His head snapped up. "What the h.e.l.l are you suggesting?"

"I should guess that would be obvious enough. She's provided several rather good alibis for you, hasn't she? First last night and now this evening."

Davies-Jones stared at him incredulously before he laughed. "My G.o.d, that's absolutely unbelievable. Do you think Helen's stupid? Do you think she's so naive that she'd allow a man to do that to her? And not once, but twice? In twenty-four hours? What kind of a woman do you think she is?"

"I know exactly the kind of woman Helen is," Lynley responded. "One absolutely vulnerable to a man who claims to be in possession of a weakness that only she can cure. And that's how you played it, isn't it? Right into her bed. If I bring her down here now, no doubt I'll discover that this evening in her room was just another variation on last night's tender theme."

"And by G.o.d, you can't bear the thought of that, can you? You're so sick with jealousy that you stopped seeing straight the moment you knew I'd slept with her. Face the facts, Inspector. Don't twist them about to pin something on me because you're too G.o.dd.a.m.ned afraid to take me on in any other way."

Lynley moved sharply in his chair, but Macaskin and Havers were on their feet at once. That brought him to his senses. "Get him out of here," he said.

BARBARA HAVERS waited until Macaskin himself had ushered Davies-Jones from the room. She watched to ensure they were left in complete privacy before she cast a long, supplicating look in St. James' direction. He joined her at the table with Lynley, who had put on his reading spectacles and was looking through Barbara's notes. The room was taking on a more than lived-in look, with gla.s.ses, plates of half-eaten food, overfull ashtrays, and notebooks scattered about. The air smelled as if a contagion were alive in it.

"Sir."

Lynley raised his head and Barbara saw with a wrench that he looked awful, f.a.gged out, drawn through a wringer of his own devising.

"Let's look at what we have," she suggested.

Over the top of his spectacles, Lynley's eyes went from Barbara to St. James. "We have a locked door," he replied reasonably. "We have Francesca Gerrard locking it with the only key available besides the one across the room on the dressing table. We have a man in the next room with a clear means of access. Now we're looking for a motive."

No, Barbara thought weakly. She kept her voice even and impartial. "You must admit that it's purely coincidental that Helen's room and Joy's room adjoined each other. He couldn't have known in advance about that."

"Couldn't he? A man with a self-professed interest in architecture? There are homes with adjoining rooms all over the country. It hardly takes a university degree to guess there would be two here. Or that Joy, after specifically requesting a room by Helen's, would be given one of them. I imagine no one else was phoning Francesca Gerrard with special requests of that nature."

Barbara refused to submit. "Francesca herself could have killed Joy as matters stand now, sir. She was in the room. She admits it. Or she could have given the key to her brother and let him do the job."

"It always comes back to Lord Stinhurst for you, doesn't it?"

"No, that's not it."

"And if you want to go with Stinhurst, what about Gowan's death? Why did Stinhurst kill him?"

"I'm not arguing that it's Stinhurst, sir," Barbara said, trying to hold on to her patience, her temper, and her need to shout out Stinhurst's motive until Lynley was forced to accept it. "For that matter, Irene Sinclair could have done it. Or Sydeham or Ellacourt, since they were both on their own. Or Jeremy Vinney. Joy was in his room earlier. Elizabeth told us as much. For all we know, he wanted Joy, got himself squarely rejected, went to her room and killed her in a fit of anger."