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S olomon had no objection to invading Sydney’s privacy.

Part of him really wanted to knock the cub down, hurt him for what he had said about Constance.

But then, it was not so different from what the rest of the world said, only the world would never say it to him, not with impunity.

Besides which, he was aware that some of his unusually short temper was down to David.

Whether or not this Johnny was David—and he was beginning to think not—he would have to come to terms eventually with the reality that he would never find him.

The idea that David might not want to find him was almost as unbearable as imagining what had happened to him all those years ago.

None of that was Sydney’s fault, and Solomon was not known as a cool head for nothing. So he was perfectly in control of his temper when Rachel knocked on Sydney’s door.

“Sydney, are you in there?”

The door was wrenched open to reveal a scowling Sydney, who looked as if he’d been catching up on very necessary sleep. “Go away!”

“I can’t,” Rachel said without any pretense of apology. “I brought Mr. Grey.”

By then, Sydney had already seen Solomon. His color fluctuated and a wide array of expressions sped across his face, making them impossible to read.

He tried for the high moral ground. “Mr. Grey. I’m sure my father is delighted you could spare us the time.”

“Are you?” Solomon said coolly. “I’m sure you will be equally delighted to hear that Mrs. Silver, while sustaining severe injury in your father’s service, is likely to make a full recovery.”

He said it to gain a reaction, to judge Sydney’s complicity in the attack, which had surely to be connected to the theft of the treasure.

But Sydney rubbed his forehead in a bafflement that looked genuine. “Mrs. Silver was attacked? How? By whom? Is it related to my aunt’s disappearance?”

“Almost certainly. May I ask you a few questions about your aunt?”

Sydney held the door wide. “I can hardly say no, can I? Go away, troublesome child.” He grasped Rachel by the arm and whisked her outside the door.

She barely had time to cast Solomon a look that said quite clearly, You see what I have to put up with?

before her brother closed the door with finality.

As Solomon had guessed, Sydney’s bedchamber was much larger and more comfortable than Audrey’s.

“Do you happen to know if your aunt had—or ever had—any admirers?” he asked, refocusing his attention on the young man, who threw himself into an armchair in an attitude he clearly meant to be insolent. Solomon remained standing.

“Suitors, do you mean?” Sydney said with some amusement. “It’s hard to imagine, but maybe she did when she was young.”

“She is not so very old,” Solomon pointed out. “What age is she? Thirty-five, thirty-eight or so?”

“I suppose. Something like that.”

“Was she acquainted with Captain Tybalt?”

Sydney raised his eyebrows. “I can’t think of any reason she would be.”

“But to the best of your knowledge,” Solomon said patiently, “ was she?”

“No. Though she did come on board with Mama, just before we disembarked. I don’t think either of them spoke to Tybalt.”

“Did you know him? Before you set sail, I mean.”

“Well, my father introduced him when we were planning the expedition.”

“You didn’t meet him before then? At your family’s country home, perhaps?”

Sydney scratched his head. “No, but then, I’ve hardly ever been there. Mostly, we let it. You should talk to my father.”

“I will. Rachel seems to think your father forbade Miss Lloyd to marry a man he considered unsuitable. Do you know anything about that?”

“Lord, no, but he’s a terrible snob, my father. I could easily imagine it, though Rachel is a child with a large imagination.” Sydney glanced up suddenly. “Good Lord, you don’t think Aunt Aud’s suitor was Tybalt, do you?”

“Is there any reason it couldn’t be?”

“Yes,” Sydney said. “My father still speaks to him. If you haven’t noticed, he’s not a forgiving man.”

“What if the price of your father’s continuing to employ him was that he stay away from Miss Lloyd?”

Sydney closed his mouth. “I did hear there was some trouble in Tybalt’s past. So maybe he was desperate for the work. Seemed a good fellow to me, though. Some difficult sailing, too, I don’t mind telling you.”

“Did Joshua Clarke seem like a good fellow, too?”

Sydney looked bewildered. “Who is Joshua Clarke?”

“You might know him as Samuels. Ship’s carpenter aboard the Queen of the Sea .”

“Was he? Didn’t you mention him before?”

“He helped move your trunks and bags and the treasure chest out of your cabin and your father’s, before everything was carried up onto the deck for your leaving the ship.”

Sydney’s face cleared. “I remember him now. He didn’t do much of the carrying, though. Left that to the younger men, the one with the funny name and the fellow we picked up in Madagascar.”

“Johnny,” Solomon said, still watching him.

“Yes? I believe you’re right. They loaded it all onto the carriage for us, too.”

“Think back, if you please. When you had packed and closed your trunks, did they all sit in the gangway with the treasure chest?”

“They were all there, with my father’s baggage, when I went up on deck. Except the treasure chest. The carpenter fellow was helping Papa tie the chest shut, since the clasp had broken.”

“Were Captain Tybalt’s bags there, too?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Very well. When you went up on deck, did you leave Johnny and Squibbs with the bags?”

“Yes, I think… No, wait, they went up ahead of me, hauling one of my father’s trunks between them. Not the treasure chest. And my father came up himself a moment or two later.”

Leaving Samuels alone with the treasure … Solomon’s skin prickled with a sense of resolution tantalizingly close. “Did Johnny go straight back down for the next trunk?”

“No, Tybalt shouted him over to the other end of the deck about something or other.”

Was that deliberate? Were Tybalt and Samuels in this together? Was it Tybalt’s revenge for being denied Audrey Lloyd as his wife? Had Audrey eloped with Tybalt? And had Tybalt killed Samuels-Clarke to avoid having to give him any of the treasure? And to leave no witnesses behind…

Were Tybalt and Audrey together in Paris now, selling bits and pieces of treasure to finance the rest of their journey to wherever they wished to go?

He could almost see it. Almost. He could well imagine Audrey’s desire for freedom from this house, where she was neglected and confined as an embarrassing spinster aunt. But he needed Constance’s insight.

And he needed to know how the treasure had got from its original chest into the replica made by Samuels-Clarke during the return voyage.

The man might have had time to move the treasure itself—at a pinch—but surely someone would have noticed the fake chest being lugged down there?

There seemed to have been nowhere it could have been hidden.

“So when did Johnny and Squibbs bring up the other baggage?” Solomon asked.

“Oh, not long after.”

“In what order?”

“Lord, I don’t remember,” Sydney snapped. “I wasn’t really paying attention—more concerned with getting off the damned ship where I’d been rotting for the better part of a year!”

“How many trunks did you have on board?”

“Just one, and a bag or two.”

“I don’t suppose,” Solomon said without much hope, “that you have the trunk and bags here in this room?”

“I do, as a matter of fact. We seem to have less servants every time I turn around. Discovering the treasure was meant to change all that.”

Clearly it had never entered Sydney’s head that he could remove the items himself and put them in the attic or wherever such things were stored in this house.

But he rose without fuss, went to the far side of his bed, and pulled a large trunk into the middle of the room.

He opened it without being asked and spread his hands like a stage conjurer displaying the emptiness of his vessel.

Inside were only a couple of empty, soft leather bags.

“How full was it?” Solomon asked, with the inkling of a possibility nudging his mind.

“About half, I suppose. My father wouldn’t let me take much, in case we found masses of treasure to bring home. I thought he was delusional at the time, and in fact, I came back with less than I’d started with. I threw out a coat and several shirts that were damaged beyond repair.”

“And the bags?” Solomon asked.

“Empty,” Sydney said wryly. “Again, my father insisted I take them.”

Was Sydney deliberately—or accidentally—pushing suspicion onto his father? Implying Lloyd himself had planned to hide the treasure elsewhere in the luggage?

“And they were equally empty when you unpacked here?”

“I can only assume so,” Sydney said. “The servants unpacked everything.”

“Your father had two trunks, according to the seamen I spoke to.”

Sydney’s smile was cynical. “A mark of status. Though, of course, his trunks were slightly smaller than mine. Tell me, how is any of this helping my aunt?”

“I’ll tell you when I know. Thank you for your time.”

*

Questioning the Lloyds’ servants confirmed Solomon’s belief that Miss Lloyd had left the house almost immediately after dinner. Before he tried to untangle his thoughts and theories, preferably with Constance, if she was up to such discussions, he dropped into the study once more.

Lloyd scowled at him. “Good God, are you still here? You should be out there , finding my poor sister!” He flung one arm toward the window, indicating, presumably, the rest of the world.

“I shall be, in just a few minutes. I have been collecting clues as to where she went.”

“She did not leave voluntarily, sir!” Lloyd exclaimed, clearly affronted by the very idea.