"Joy and Stinhurst went upstairs. Separately. But they both looked dreadful. As if neither had won the argument and both wished it had never come about. Jeremy Vinney tried to say something to Joy when she came out into the hall, but she wouldn't talk. She may have been crying as well. I couldn't tell."
"Where did you go from there, Helen?" Lynley was studying the ashtray, the cigarette butts that littered it and the ashes that dusted the tabletop in mourning, grey mixed with black.
"I heard someone in the drawing room and went in to see who it was."
"Why?"
Lady Helen considered lying, manufacturing an amusing description of herself governed by curiosity, prowling about the house like a youthful Miss Marple. She chose the truth instead.
"Actually, Tommy, I'd been looking for Rhys."
"Ah. Disappeared, had he?"
She bristled at Lynley's tone. "Everyone had disappeared." She saw that St. James had finished his perusal of the room. He took a seat in the armchair near the door and leaned back against it, listening. Lady Helen knew he would take no notes. But he would remember every word.
"Was Davies-Jones in the drawing room?"
"No. Lady Stinhurst-Marguerite Rintoul-was there. And Jeremy Vinney. Perhaps he'd caught the scent of a story that he wanted to write for his newspaper because he seemed to be trying to question her about what had happened. With no success. I spoke to her as well because...frankly, she seemed to be in some sort of stupor. She did talk to me briefly. And strangely enough, she said something very similar to what Francesca had said earlier to Lord Stinhurst in the sitting room. 'Stop her.' Or something like that."
"Her? Joy?"
"Or perhaps Elizabeth, her daughter. I'd just mentioned Elizabeth. I think I'd said, 'Shall I fetch Elizabeth for you?'"
As she spoke, feeling very much a potential suspect being interrogated by the police, Lady Helen became aware of other sounds in the house: the steady scratching of Sergeant Havers' pencil upon her notebook paper; doors being unlocked at the other end of the corridor; the voice of Macaskin directing a search; and below in the library, upon the opening and closing of the door, angry shouting. Two men. She couldn't identify them.
"What time did you come to your room last night, Helen?"
"It must have been half past twelve. I didn't notice."
"What did you do when you got here?"
"I got undressed, got ready for bed, read for a time."
"And then?"
Lady Helen made no immediate reply. She was watching Lynley's face, completely free to do so since he would not meet her eyes. His features in repose had always combined every classical beauty possible in a man, but as he continued to ask his questions, Lady Helen saw those features begin to take on a grim impenetrability that she had never seen before and could not have guessed that he even possessed. Confronted with it, she felt entirely cut off from him for the very first time in their long and close friendship, and in a desire to put an end to this division, she reached a hand forward, not with the intention of touching him but in a miming of contact where contact apparently would not be allowed. When he did not respond with anything that could have been taken for acknowledgement, she felt compelled to speak honestly.
"You seem terribly angry, Tommy. Please. Tell me. What is it?"
Lynley's right fist clenched and unclenched in a movement so quick that it looked like a reflex. "When did you start smoking?"
At that, Lady Helen heard the abrupt cessation of Sergeant Havers' writing. She saw, past Lynley, St. James' movement in his chair. And she knew that, for some reason, her question had allowed Lynley to reach a decision, one that advanced him from police work into a new arena altogether, an arena not at all governed by the manuals, codes, and procedures that formed the rigid boundaries of his job.
"You know I don't smoke." She withdrew her hand.
"What did you hear last night?" Lynley asked. "Joy Sinclair was murdered between two and six in the morning."
"Nothing, I'm afraid. It was terribly windy, enough to rattle the windows. That must have drowned out any noise from her room. If there was any noise."
"And, of course, even if it hadn't been windy, you weren't alone, were you? You were...distracted, I should guess."
"You're right. I wasn't alone." She saw the muscles tighten at Lynley's mouth. Otherwise, he was motionless.