It was an awkward ritual, made worse because St. James’ father-in-law was not there to assist him, made worse because the entire need for assistance in what for anyone else would have been a simple procedure had its genesis on a single night of Lynley’s own drunken carelessness. He watched St. James, caught between wanting to offer him help and knowing that the offer would be politely rebuffed. The leg brace was uncovered, the crutches were used, the shoes were untied, and always St. James’ face remained entirely indifferent, as if he had not been lithe and athletic a mere decade before.
“Stinhurst’s story had the ring of truth, St. James. It’s not exactly the kind of tale one spins to get out of a murder charge, is it? What could he possibly hope to gain from disparaging his own wife? If anything, the case against him looks blacker now. He’s given himself a solid motive for murder.”
“One that can’t be verified,” St. James argued mildly, “unless you check with Lady Stinhurst herself. And something tells me that Stinhurst is betting you’re too much the gentleman to do so.”
“I’ll do it, of course. If it becomes necessary.”
St. James dropped one of his shoes onto the floor and began attaching his leg brace to another. “But let’s go beyond what he’s assuming your reaction will be, Tommy. Let’s consider for a moment that his story is true. It would be clever of him, wouldn’t it, to outline his motive for murder so obviously. That way you needn’t dig for it, needn’t be additionally suspicious when you uncover it. Taken to the extreme, you needn’t even suspect him of the murder in the first place since he’s been perfectly honest with you about everything from the start. It’s clever, isn’t it? Too clever by half. And what better way to develop a crucial need to destroy the evidence than by acquiescing to Jeremy Vinney’s presence here as well, a man likely to pursue any embarrassing story once Joy was killed.”
“You’re arguing that Stinhurst knew in advance that Joy’s revisions of the play would turn it into an exposé of his wife and brother’s affair. But that really doesn’t hold with Helen being given the room adjoining Joy’s, does it? Or with the locked hall door. Or with Davies-Jones’ fingerprints all over that key.”
St. James didn’t disagree. He merely remarked, “If it comes to that, Tommy, I suppose one could say that it also doesn’t hold with the fact that Sydeham was alone for a part of the night. As was his wife, as it turns out. So either one of them had the opportunity to kill her.”
“ Opportunity, perhaps. Everyone appears to have had the opportunity. But motive is a problem. Not to mention the fact that Joy’s door was locked, so whoever did it either had access to those master keys or got in through Helen’s room. We’ll always go back to that, you see.”
“Stinhurst could have had access to the keys, couldn’t he? He told you himself that he’s been here before.”
“As have his wife, his daughter, and Joy. All of them with access to the keys, St. James. Even David Sydeham may have had access to them if he went down the corridor later on in the afternoon to see which room Elizabeth Rintoul had disappeared into when she saw him and Joanna Ellacourt arrive. But that’s stretching things, isn’t it? Why would he be curious about Elizabeth Rintoul’s hiding place? More, why would Sydeham kill Joy Sinclair? To spare his wife a production with Robert Gabriel? It doesn’t wash. Apparently, she’s tightly under contract to appear with Gabriel anyway. Killing Joy accomplished nothing.”
“We go back to that point, don’t we? Joy’s death seems to benefit one person only: Stuart Rintoul, Lord Stinhurst. Now that she’s dead, the play that promised to be so embarrassing for him is never to be produced. By anyone. It looks bad, Tommy. I don’t see how you can ignore such a motive.”
“As to that-”
A knock sounded on the door. Lynley answered it to find Constable Lonan standing in the corridor, carrying a lady’s shoulder bag that was encased in plastic. He held it stiffl y before him in both hands, like a butler presenting a tray of questionable hors d’oeuvres.
“It’s Sinclair’s,” the constable explained. “The inspector thought you might want to have a look at the contents before the lab goes over the bag for prints.”
Lynley took it from him, laid it on the bed, and pulled on the latex gloves that St. James wordlessly passed him from the open valise at his feet. “Where was it found?”
“In the drawing room,” Lonan replied. “On the window seat behind the curtains.”
Lynley looked at him sharply. “Hidden?”
“Looks like she just tossed it there the same way she tossed about everything in her room.”
Lynley unzipped the plastic, slipping the shoulder bag out onto the bed. The other two men watched curiously as he opened it and spilled out its contents. They comprised an interesting array of articles which Lynley sorted through slowly, dividing them into two piles. Into one pile he placed those objects common to a hundred thousand handbags hanging from the arms of a hundred thousand women: a set of keys attached to a large, brass ring, two inexpensive ballpoint pens, an opened pack of Wrigley’s, a single matchbook, and a pair of dark glasses in a new leather case.
The rest of the contents went into the second pile where they attested to the fact that, like many women, Joy Sinclair had imbued even so mundane an object as a black shoulder bag with the singular stamp of her personality. Lynley thumbed through her chequebook first, scanning the entries for anything unusual and finding nothing. Apparently the woman had not been overly concerned with the state of her finances, since she had not balanced the book in at least six weeks. This fi nancial nonchalance had its explanation in her wallet, which held nearly one hundred pounds in notes of varying denominations. But neither chequebook nor wallet retained Lynley’s interest once his eyes fell upon the fi nal two objects Joy Sinclair had carried with her-an engagement calendar and a small, hand-sized tape recorder.
The calendar was new, its pages scarcely having seen use at all. The weekend at Westerbrae was blocked out, as was a luncheon with Jeremy Vinney two weeks past. There were references to a theatre party, a dental appointment, some sort of anniversary, and three engagements marked Upper Grosvenor Street-each one crossed out as if none had been kept. Lynley turned the page to the successive month, found nothing, turned again. Here the single word P. Green was written across one entire week, chapters 1-3 across the week after that. There was nothing else save a reference to S birthday jotted down on the twenty-fi fth.
“Constable,” Lynley said thoughtfully, “I’d like to keep this for now. The contents, not the bag itself. Will you check that with Macaskin before he pushes off?”
The constable nodded and left the room. Lynley waited until the door closed behind him before he turned back to the bed, picked up the tape recorder, and with a glance at St. James switched it on.
She had a perfectly lovely voice, throaty and musical. It was husky, a come-hither sort of voice with the kind of inadvertent sensuality that some women consider a blessing and others a curse. The sound switched on and off, in varying tempos with differing backgrounds- traffic, the underground, a quick blare of music-as if she grabbed the recorder out of her shoulder bag to save a sudden thought wherever it happened to strike her.
“Try to put Edna off at least two more days. There’s nothing to report. Perhaps she’ll believe I’ve had flu…That penguin! She used to love penguins. It’ll be perfect…For God’s sake, don’t let Mum forget Sally again this year… John Darrow believed the best about Hannah until circumstances forced him to believe the worst…See about tickets and a decent place to stay. Take a heavier coat this time…Jeremy. Jeremy. Oh Lord, why be in such a lather about him? It’s hardly a lifetime proposition…It was dark, and although the winter storm…wonderful, Joy. Why not simply go with a dark and stormy night and have done with creativity once and for all… Remember that peculiar smelclass="underline" decaying vegetables and flotsam washed down the river by the last storm…The sound of frogs and pumps and the unremittingly flat land…Why not ask Rhys how best to approach him? He’s good with people. He’ll be able to help…Rhys wants to-”