Curtis said, with dawning incredulity, “Are you suggesting that’s a two-way mirror?”
“There’s one in every guest room, I suspect. If you lift the mirror in my room off the wall, first removing the screws that keep it in place, you can see a good-sized aperture through to a narrow dead-end passage that connects to the service corridor at the far end.”
“You are bloody joking.”
“No. If you can think of a reason to knock a hole in the wall and then put a mirror over it, except to put a camera behind the mirror, I’ll be fascinated. Come to that, I can’t imagine what else those hidden corridors were built for in the first place.”
“Well…electricity—something to do with the heating…”
“It’s possible. The most charitable interpretation is that they were adapted once our host realised the potential for blackmail, rather than built with it in mind. Either way, Armstrong is in this to the neck. Armstrong and his delightful house, so far from London, with such well-chosen guests and, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, some very attractive and attentive servants. The young blond who showed me to my room was particularly charming.”
Curtis struggled for words. “Orchestrated, planned extortion?”
“Quite.”
“Why?”
“Money.” Da Silva spoke as though it were obvious.
“But Armstrong’s rich!”
“Have you any idea how much this place cost to build? The folly, the redwood trees imported from Canada, the electrical wiring, the heating devices? The glass bulbs in the light fittings are especially manufactured for this house, in vast quantity. They have their own custom telephone exchange, and an electrical generator that runs off water, all built for Peakholme. It takes a king’s ransom to keep it running, and talking of costing a fortune, Lady Armstrong and the egregious James are extravagant to a fault. Her patronage of the arts—she’s delightfully kind to struggling poets—and her dresses. His horses and gambling, and he’s bone idle, lives off his father and doesn’t lift a finger. Armstrong’s business is sound enough, but he’s spending to the top of his bent. He needs another war; short of that, he needs money.”
Curtis frowned. “How do you know all this? How sure are you?”
“About his financial worries? I’ve heard plenty of whispers. About the blackmail—well, I’ll be certain when I find where he keeps the photographic evidence. Until then it’s hearsay, guesswork and deduction. But I should scarcely have come to the countryside, in October of all times, for anything less than profound concern. Those are my cards on the table, Mr. Curtis. I believe that Armstrong is engaged in a cruel and deliberate scheme of entrapment and blackmail that has driven men to their deaths. What do you believe?”
It was Curtis’s turn to examine the other man’s face now. Could he trust da Silva? He seemed sincere, as far as Curtis could tell. And God knew, he needed help.
He took a deep breath. “Lafayette came to my uncle’s house about a month ago.”
“Which uncle?”
“Sir Henry. He’d been to see Sir Maurice already, at his office. Sir Maurice sent him packing, so he came to appeal to Sir Henry. Because of this, I suppose.” He lifted his damaged hand. “He hoped Sir Henry might speak to Sir Maurice.”
“Do you always address your uncles as Sir What-have-you?” da Silva put in curiously.
“Yes, why not?” Sir Henry Curtis and Sir Maurice Vaizey, his father’s and mother’s brothers, had been responsible for Curtis’s rearing. Sir Henry had remained unmarried through Curtis’s childhood; Sir Maurice had been a widower for decades. Curtis had never doubted their affection, but his upbringing hadn’t been sentimental.
Da Silva shrugged. “Why not indeed. Of course. Carry on.”
Curtis bristled, sensing an implied criticism without quite knowing what it was. But da Silva was twitching a finger as if to hurry him on. He got back to the point. “Sir Henry’s in Africa, though, and I was there, so Lafayette talked to me instead. He’d broken down, he was half-starved and raving, for all I know it was pure madness. Sir Maurice certainly thought so. But he, Lafayette, said that Armstrong had sabotaged his factory. That Armstrong had engineered the flaws in the new guns to destroy Lafayette’s business and take his share.”
“What made his claim credible?”
“I don’t know if it is. He believed that two of his most trusted men, a foreman and a clerk, had been suborned by Armstrong to sabotage him. He said they’d both vanished. I checked that, they’ve both been reported missing by their families.”
“What do you think happened to them?”