'Why won't you listen?' Smythe spread out his hands as though beseeching for alms. 'I had an argument, I admit it, but not with the dead girl. It was another girl entirely; surely you learned that much at the pub? I wanted her to come back for a drink. It was quite safe; I knew Melville-Briggs would be out at a dinner all night. He does the same thing several times a year.'
'So while the cat was away you decided to play.'
'Why not?' he demanded truculently. 'I told you, I wouldn't be the only one. Melville-Briggs might think he owns me, body and soul, but he doesn't. I'm my own man.'
This defiant declaration was pathetic after what had gone before, but at least it seemed to give him some satisfaction, for now he calmed down a little. 'Anyway, she wouldn't come. She kept insisting that h
