came for our luggage and showed us up to our room. And...I'm not entirely certain, but I think I may have seen Elizabeth Rintoul, Stinhurst's daughter, darting into one of the rooms along that corridor off the entrance hall. Someone was down there, at any rate."
Lynley and Havers exchanged speculative glances. Lynley directed Sydeham's attention towards the plan of the house which Havers had brought with her into the sitting room. It was spread out on the central table, next to Sydeham's glove. "Which room?"
Sydeham pushed out of his chair, came to the table, and ran his eyes over the plan. He scrutinised it conscientiously before he replied. "It's hard to say. I only caught a glimpse, as if she were trying to avoid us. I just assumed it was Elizabeth because she's peculiar that way. But I should guess this last room." He pointed to the offi ce.
Lynley considered the implications. The master keys were kept in the offi ce. They were locked in the desk, Macaskin had said. But then he had gone on to say that Gowan Kilbride may have had access to them. If that were the case, the locking of the desk may well have been a casual matter at best, sometimes done and sometimes ignored. And on the day of the arrival of so large a party, surely the desk would have been unlocked, the keys easily accessible to anyone involved in preparing the rooms. Or to anyone at all who knew about the existence of the offi ce: Elizabeth Rintoul, her mother, her father, even Joy Sinclair herself.
"When was the last time you saw Joy?" Lynley asked.
Sydeham shifted restlessly on his feet. He looked as if he wanted to go back to his chair. Lynley decided he wanted him standing.
"A while after the read-through. Perhaps half past eleven. Perhaps later. I wasn't paying much attention to the time."
"Where?"
"In the upstairs corridor. She was heading towards her room." Sydeham looked momentarily uncomfortable but continued. "As I said before, I'd had a row with Joanna over the play. She'd stormed out of the read-through, and I found her in the gallery. We had some fairly nasty words. I don't much care for rowing with my wife. I was feeling low afterwards, so I was going to the library to fetch myself a bottle of whisky. That's when I saw Joy."
"Did you speak to her at all?"
"She didn't look very much like she wanted to speak to anyone. I just brought the whisky back to my room, had a few drinks, well... maybe four or five. Then I simply slept it off."
"Where was your wife all this time?"
Sydeham's eyes drifted to the fi replace. His hands automatically sought the pockets of his grey tweed jacket, perhaps in a fruitless search for cigarettes to still his nerves. Obviously, this was the question he had hoped to avoid answering.
"I don't know. She'd left the gallery. I don't know where she went."
"You don't know," Lynley repeated carefully.
"That's right. Look, I learned a good number of years ago to leave Joanna to herself when she's in a temper, and she was in a fair one last night. So that's what I did. I had the drinks. I fell asleep, passed out, call it whatever you want to. I don't know where she was. All I can say is that when I woke up this morn-ing-when the girl knocked on the door and babbled at us to get dressed and meet in the drawing room-Joanna was in bed beside me." Sydeham noticed that Havers was writing steadily. "Joanna was upset," he asserted. "But it was at me. No one else. Things have been...a bit off between us for a while. She wanted to be away from me. She was angry."
"But she did return to your room last night?"
"Of course she did."
"What time? In an hour? In two? In three?"
"I don't know."
"But surely her movement in the room would have awakened you."
Sydeham's voice grew impatient. "Have you ever slept off a binge, Inspector? Pardon the expression, but it would have been like waking the dead."
Lynley persisted. "You heard nothing? No wind? No voices? Nothing at all?"
"I told you that."
"Nothing from Joy Sinclair's room? She was on the other side of yours. It's hard to believe that a woman could meet her death without making a sound. Or that your own wife could be in and out of the room without your awareness. What other things might have gone on without your knowledge?"