For want of a nail the kingdom was lost. How many crimes were being neglected, throughout England, because of the manpower devoted to the discovery of the woman who lay beside him now, safe and sound and intoxicating, her warm breath across his face all he wanted of life from this day forward? He crept out of bed and walked to the window. He always did his best thinking while contemplating a landscape. From behind him he heard the rustle of Agatha waking. She rose and glided to him. Still he didn’t turn towards her. She pressed herself against his back, wrapped her arms around his waist, rested her pointed chin on his shoulder to share the view with him, the further-reaching hills obscured by a stand of fir trees.
‘I suppose you’re thinking about Nan,’ she said.
‘I am.’
‘Do you know the artist Claude Monet?’
‘Lilies and blurs?’
‘That’s the one. He died earlier this month. I read in a notice about his death that he once said, “To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.” ’
‘And that means what, precisely?’
‘This is your case. You’re the one looking at it. By grand good luck, you’re the one who’s been charged to solve it. So can’t the solution, the name, be anything you like?’
‘I suppose it can be.’
‘Good.’ She stepped away from him as though the matter were settled.
‘And then what? We can’t stay here forever.’
She sat on the edge of the bed.
‘There can be no more days,’ Chilton said. He kneeled in front of her and took up her hands. ‘Or there can be all the days. If we leave, you and I. Together. Today. Let the disappearance last a lifetime. Why not?’
‘Why not?’ she repeated.
He didn’t want to interrupt the joy bursting forth within him by muddying her agreement with details. They could work that out later. A car, a train, a destination.
‘I’ll go back to the Bellefort,’ he said. ‘And collect my things. Then we can work out a plan.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ she said. ‘I could do with some air.’
‘But darling, you can’t be seen with me.’
‘That will make our life together rather difficult, won’t it?’ She laughed and put on his hat, pulled it down over her forehead. ‘Nobody will recognize me. They might even take me for your brother.’
Perhaps Chilton was unnerved by the word ‘brother’ and that’s why he didn’t protest. Perhaps Agatha – in her heart, more than she was able to admit – wanted to be found after all. Or perhaps, as far as they knew, all the chances they’d taken so far had netted no danger. So why not take one more? Plain sight had proved as good a place to hide as anywhere.
Archie and Lippincott arrived at the Bellefort Hotel while Agatha was upstairs in Chilton’s room, helping him gather his things. Mrs Leech ushered them into the library. She brought out the guest ledger for the two of them to look over.
Archie’s eyes immediately landed on my last name. O’Dea. ‘This,’ he said, pointing. ‘This is my wife’s handwriting.’ As if he’d forgotten me entirely, my name as well as my hand. A sleight of mind, confusing the two of us. One of his women’s penmanship, what did it matter which? To give him credit, the mistake was likely borne of hope. He wanted his wife before his eyes, whole and alive. If he erased my existence by assigning my name and handwriting to her, he could make everything right. He could conjure her finally, safe and well.
Never knowing that I hadn’t been erased. I was just upstairs. My feet directly above his head, gliding over the floorboards, my heart dropped into my bowels, as I pressed my face against the door.