Henderson pushed open the door to the Armstrong room and found it empty. He reached for the light switch on the wall then decided against it, not wishing to draw attention to himself in case anyone else should pass by. The light from the hallway was weak but sufficient for present purposes.
He prowled around the room, which was a basic square with several wall-mounted placards and some exhibits inside a central unit with Perspex casing to protect it from damage. He held his watch up to the light and tried to read the dial.
One minute to nine.
Any second now, he would find out who they were and what they wanted.
And then, he would find a way to get rid of them.
Henderson positioned himself just behind the door, so that he would see them entering the room before they saw him. He stood there in silence, feeling the wall against his back, then frowned as he heard a creaking sound coming from somewhere close by.
He was about to investigate, when the house was plunged into darkness once again.
*
Ryan swung his car through the gates and was forced to reduce his speed along the narrow driveway, for which Phillips was eternally grateful. They followed the road over the little stone bridge next to the Archimedes screw and heard the water bubbling furiously through its crushing blades as they passed. They rounded a bend and the house materialised through the trees, its windows flaming brightly against the inky blue-black sky. “It doesn’t look real, does it?” Phillips said, his eyes trained on the perfect backdrop.
“It’s not going to disappear before your eyes,” Ryan muttered.
Then, in a moment of extreme irony, that is exactly what happened.
The two men looked on in shock as the house seemed to disappear, its walls blending with the colour of the night sky and the trees surrounding it.
CHAPTER 30
“What the hell?”
Martin Henderson swore beneath his breath as the lights went out. He stepped away from the wall to begin feeling his way toward the doorway but the house was pitch black and he could barely see his own hand in front of his face. The circuit had blown again, he thought, which was hardly surprising when a couple of old crackpots insisted on living like Victorian throwbacks rather than relying on the National Grid like the rest of the known world.
The sooner he could get away from here, the better.
His fingers brushed against the architrave on the doorway and he began to retrace his steps using the wall as a guide, no longer concerned about keeping his meeting at nine o’clock. He only hoped the other person was having as much trouble as he was, finding their way through the maze of rooms in the old house.
When his fingers touched nothing but air, he realised he’d reached the turning to lead him back into the small hallway outside the bedrooms and the morning room, and the lift shaft was somewhere over his left shoulder.
Blind without any light source, Henderson’s other senses were heightened considerably. He shivered as he stepped in front of the doors to the lift shaft, feeling an icy breath of wind brush against his cheeks. His brain was slow to compute the fact and he did not realise the implication until it was too late.
The doors were open.
The figure stepped out in front of him, barely making a creak against the floorboards but it was enough to alert him to the presence of another.
“For The Valiant,” they whispered.
Two firm hands came up to thrust against his chest and Henderson stumbled in the darkness, a strangled gasp escaping his throat as he fell backward into the empty lift shaft. Down and down he fell, landing with a nauseating thud in the basement three flights below.
*
Ryan and Phillips pulled up outside the main entrance to the house just as the lighting was restored. The front door was open and they hurried inside, where they found a small crowd of people gathered in the hallway. Ryan made a mental note of who was present and added Dave Quibble to the list when he joined them from the direction of the fuse box in the servants’ corridor next to the kitchen. “I definitely need to call in a specialist,” he declared, cheerfully. “I’m damned if I know why the power keeps failing; there isn’t any shortage of hydroelectricity.”
Ryan counted the faces he could see and found a very important one to be missing.
“Where’s Martin Henderson?” he demanded.
Only just registering his arrival, the crowd turned to look at him in surprise.
“Hello, Ryan.” Cassandra Gilbert stepped forward, sliding easily into her role as hostess. “I think Martin was working in his office until recently. Maggie? Would you be a dear and ask him to join us?”
The housekeeper headed off down the hallway to seek him out.
“What happened here?” Ryan asked.
This time, it was Lionel’s turn to respond.
“What the devil do you think happened? The blasted lights went out again and I spilled port all over the ruddy place!”
Ryan didn’t bother to comment because he had spotted Maggie returning to them and she was alone.
“I’m sorry, he isn’t in his office,” she said, worriedly. “I had a quick look down the hall but I can’t see him anywhere.”
“He’s not in the staff room,” Charlotte Shapiro put in. “I’ve just been in there.”
Ryan slipped his mobile phone from his jacket pocket and put an immediate call through to the surveillance team outside the estate manager’s cottage, exchanged a few brief words and then slipped it into his pocket again.
He turned to Phillips, keeping his voice lowered.
“Henderson’s car is still parked in the staff car park and the surveillance team say he’s been in here all day.”
“I’ll check in with Lowerson and Yates, just to be sure he hasn’t legged it,” Phillips said, then added, “I get a bad feeling about this.”
“You and me both, Frank.”
With that, Ryan turned back to the crowd. Other than the Gilberts, there were four people he didn’t recognise but assumed were friends given their evening attire. Dave Quibble stood in his anorak as if he’d been about to go home and Charlotte Shapiro stood beside him dressed in her favourite dark green gilet. Maggie stood beside a couple of women he recognised as part-time catering staff who sometimes worked shifts in the tea room or at the house.
“If I could ask you all to stay seated in the library for the time being—”
“Why?” Lionel demanded. “What gives you the right to order me about in my own house?”
Ryan simply flipped out his warrant card.
“This gives me the right,” he explained, in a flat voice. “We are about to conduct a search of the house but, before we do, I would like to issue a friendly warning. We are here this evening to arrest Martin Henderson on charges of murder. If any of you are aware of his whereabouts or have information that could help lead us to his whereabouts, you should tell us now.”
He paused but nobody was forthcoming.
“I’m sure I don’t need to remind any of you that obstruction of justice is a serious offence,” he said.
Looking among their faces, all he saw was stunned shock.
“Alright, we’ll search the place from top to bottom.”