Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley, #2)(19)

“I wish I could. All I know for certain is that it involved the play Joy Sinclair was writing. Lord Stinhurst and she had a terrible quarrel about it. Joanna Ellacourt was furious as well.”

“Why?”

“From what I could gather, the play Joy brought with her for this weekend run-through was considerably different from the play that everyone signed on to do in London. She did announce at dinner that she’d made a few changes here and there, but evidently the changes were far more extensive than anyone was prepared for. It was still a murder mystery, but little else was the same. So the argument grew from there.”

“When did all this occur?”

“We’d gone into the sitting room to do a read-through of the script. The quarrel broke out not five minutes into it. It was so odd, Tommy. They’d hardly begun when Francesca—Lord Stinhurst’s sister—absolutely leaped to her feet, as if she’d had the most dreadful shock of her life. She began shouting at Lord Stinhurst, saying something like, ‘No! Stuart, stop her!’ and then she tried to get out of the room. Only she became confused, or lost her way, because she backed directly into a large curio cabinet and smashed it to pieces. I can’t think how she managed not to cut herself to shreds in the process, but she didn’t.”

“What was everyone else doing?”

Lady Helen sketched out each person’s behaviour as best she remembered it: Robert Gabriel staring at Stuart Rintoul, Lord Stinhurst, obviously waiting for him either to deal with Joy or to go to his sister’s aid; Irene Sinclair growing pale to the very lips as the situation escalated; Joanna Ellacourt flinging her script down and stalking out of the room in a rage, followed a moment later by her husband David Sydeham; Joy Sinclair smiling across the walnut reading table at Lord Stinhurst, and that smile apparently firing him into action so that he jumped to his feet, grabbed her arm, and dragged her into the morning room next door, slamming the door behind them. Lady Helen concluded with:

“And then Elizabeth Rintoul went after her aunt Francesca. She appeared…it was hard to tell, but she may have been crying, which seems a bit out of character for her.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Elizabeth seems to have given up crying some time ago,” Lady Helen replied. “She’s given up on lots of things, I think. Joy Sinclair, among them. They used to be close friends, from what Rhys told me.”

“You haven’t mentioned what he did after the read-through,” Lynley pointed out. But he gave her no time to answer, saying instead, “Stinhurst and Joy Sinclair had the quarrel by themselves, then? The others weren’t involved?”

“Only Stinhurst and Joy. I could hear their voices from the morning room.”

“Shouting?”

“A bit from Joy. But actually I didn’t hear much from Stinhurst. He doesn’t seem to be the kind of man who has to raise his voice to get one’s attention, does he? So the only thing I really heard clearly was Joy shouting hysterically about someone called Alec. She said Alec knew and Lord Stinhurst killed him because of it.”

Next to her, Lady Helen heard Sergeant Havers’ indrawn breath, which was followed by a speculative look in Lynley’s direction. Immediately comprehending, Lady Helen hurried on to say:

“But surely that was a metaphorical statement, Tommy. A bit like, ‘If you do that, you’ll kill your mother.’ You know what I mean. And at any rate, Lord Stinhurst didn’t even respond to it. He just left, saying something like as far as he was concerned, she was through. Or words to that effect.”

“And after that?”

“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?”