room was cramped and poorly lit, but it had the combined virtues of privacy and heat, the latter emanating from an enormous old boiler that wheezed noisily in one corner of the room and dripped rusty water onto the cracked tile fl oor. The atmosphere was not unlike a steam bath, overhung with an almost imperceptible miasma of mildew and wet wood. Just behind the boiler, the back stairs led to the upper floor of the house.
"What did Gowan and Mary Agnes have to say?" Lynley asked when he had shut the door behind them.
Barbara went to the sink, extinguished her cigarette under the tap, and tossed it into the rubbish. She shoved her short brown hair behind her ears and stopped to pick a piece of tobacco off her tongue before giving her attention to her notebook. She was displeased with Lynley and troubled by the fact that she couldn't quite decide why. Whether it was for dismissing her from the sitting room earlier, or for the way she anticipated he would react to her notes, she didn't know. But whatever the source of her aggravation, she felt it like a splinter. Until it worked its way out into the open, the skin that housed it would fester.
"Gowan," she said briefl y, leaning against the warped wooden counter. It was wet from a recent washing, and she felt a ridge of damp seep through her clothes. She moved away. "It seems he had a rather nasty clash with Robert Gabriel in the library just before he and I met. That may well have gone far in lubricating his tongue."
"What sort of clash?"
"A quick brawl in which our silken Mr. Gabriel apparently got himself hammered. Gowan made sure I knew about that, as well as about the row he overheard between Gabriel and Joy Sinclair yesterday afternoon. They'd had an affair, it seems, and Gabriel was hot to have Joy tell his former wife-Irene Sinclair, as a matter of fact, Joy's sister-that he only bedded Joy once."
"Why?"
"I've the impression Robert Gabriel very much wants Irene Sinclair back and that he thought Joy could help him in his reconciliation if she'd only tell Irene that their fl ing was strictly a one-time encounter. But Joy refused to do so. She said she wouldn't deal in lies."
"Lies?"
"Yes. Evidently theirs wasn't a one-time encounter at all because, according to Gowan, when Joy refused to co-operate, Gabriel said something to her like," Barbara consulted her notes, "'You little hypocrite. For one entire year you screw me in every bug-infested rat hole in London and now you stand there and tell me you don't deal in lies!' And they continued to argue until Gabriel finally went after her. He had her down on the fl oor, in fact, when Rhys Davies-Jones managed to get in and separate them. Gowan was bringing someone's luggage up the stairs when all this was going on. He got quite an eyeful of everything because Davies-Jones left the door open when he burst into Joy's room."
"What set Gowan and Gabriel off in the library?"
"A remark someone made-Sydeham, I think-about Mary Agnes Campbell, alluding to her being Gabriel's alibi for last night."
"How much truth is there to that?"
Barbara considered the question for a moment before answering. "It's hard to tell. Mary Agnes seems rather smitten with the theatre. She's attractive, has a nice body..." Barbara shook her head. "Inspector, that man must be a good twenty-five years her senior. I can see why he might want to dandle her, but I can't see for a moment why she'd go along with the idea. Unless, of course..." She thought about the possibilities, intrigued to find that there was one that actually worked.
"Havers?"
"Hmm? Well, Robert Gabriel might have looked like her ticket to a new life. You know the sort of thing. The star-struck girl meets the established actor, sees the kind of life he can offer her, and gives herself to him in the hope he'll take her with him when he leaves."
"Did you ask her about it?"
"I wasn't able to. I didn't hear about the row between Gowan and Gabriel until after I'd spoken to Mary Agnes. I've not got back to her yet." And that was because of what Gowan had said, because of what she knew Lynley would make of the boy's information.
He seemed to read her mind. "What was Gowan able to tell you about last night?"
"He saw a lot after the read-through broke up because he had