It seemed that da Silva had left.
What the devil?
Curtis retreated to his own room to think. Da Silva had been up to something last night. Had he decided to change the plan? To abstract sufficient evidence of blackmail and treachery to hang the Armstrongs, along with the incriminating photographs, and disappear in the night, without a word?
Curtis wouldn’t put that past him. What he would put past him was the ability to leave the house in the night, and cover thirty miles to Newcastle—
Where there were no trains today except the milk train and that stopping train. Curtis felt quite sure da Silva would have checked Bradshaw before disappearing, and would have taken a decent train rather than one that went less than the speed of an Austin motorcar. In any case, how would he have got to the station, with his portmanteau? He couldn’t drive, Curtis doubted he could cover thirty miles overnight, and he could not imagine da Silva hiding out on the moors to avoid pursuit.
He went back into da Silva’s deserted room. This time he locked the door behind him and proceeded to search thoroughly, getting down to the floor and checking under the furniture. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, except that he had an increasing feeling something was wrong.
He found it behind the dresser. Da Silva’s flashlight.
It was cylindrical, of course. It could have rolled off a surface and been forgotten, except the bulb still worked. Except that da Silva was too careful a man to leave such things lying around. Except…
He did not like this, not at all.
He told himself he was being nonsensical, and made himself go down to the library again, where he read through The Fish-pond as if it might provide some sort of clue. He wished he could go up to the folly—not that he rationally thought da Silva would be waiting there; still, the urge nagged at him—but he had to keep up the pretence of his bad knee.
He made himself wait until lunchtime, with da Silva still absent, before enquiring as airily as he could, “Where’s the poet? Communing with his muse?”
“Mr. da Silva? He, ah, left early this morning.” Lady Armstrong threw him a meaningful look.
James Armstrong gave an ostentatious cough that sounded like, “Asked.” Rapid glances of delighted shock flashed round the table.
“James.” Sir Hubert’s tone was warning.
“Well, honestly,” James began, and subsided at his father’s frown, adding a mumbled, “I did say, though, mater.”
“Enough of that.” Sir Hubert set about talking golf. Curtis pretended to listen, thinking frantically.
The implication was clear: da Silva had been evicted for some crime against hospitality. Stealing the silver, buggering the footman, breaking into his host’s private files. It was, of course, possible that he’d been caught prowling and packed off, and that would explain how his possessions had been removed. And yet, and yet…
It was an hour’s drive to Newcastle station. The milk train left at half past three in the morning; surely da Silva would not have been thrown out at such an hour. But if he had been sent to cool his heels on the station platform waiting for the morning’s stopping train, might the Armstrongs not have mentioned it when Curtis proposed to catch the same train? And wouldn’t Curtis have heard a car returning at some point this morning?
There was nothing conclusive here, nothing he could pin down, but the hairs on the back of his neck were rising.
He set himself to be as convivial as he could for the rest of the meal, and observed to Lady Armstrong that he rather thought his leg might be feeling better. “I dare say you’ll think I’m a dreadful worrier for making such a fuss—”
“Oh heavens, no! I do know how it is when one has a nagging complaint,” Lady Armstrong assured him. Mrs. Lambdon, animated by that, launched into an account of her own chronic health problems, which saved Curtis the effort of doing anything but nodding courteously along.
The rest of the day seemed to last forever. Curtis took a stroll round the grounds. He gave the excuse that he wanted to see if his knee was damaged or simply strained by the previous day’s walk.
There was, so far as he could see, no disturbed ground under the redwoods, no evidence of a shallow grave or a deep one, and he cursed da Silva and his vivid turns of phrase even as he let himself into the folly. That was empty too. It smelled of cold stone and wood must. It ought to have smelled of male sweat, and spunk, and the stuff da Silva used on his hair.