Here is why Laban did not notice Jakob was gone for three full days. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan tells us: when Jakob departed, the shepherds went to the well and found no water. They waited three days, hoping it would return. It did not (Genesis 31:22).
That well had overflowed for twenty years — and it had overflowed because of his righteousness. Jakob's presence, his prayers, his integrity of dealing, had kept the water rising. His departure was not only the loss of a shepherd; it was the loss of the tzaddik whose mere being made wells ignore their natural rhythms.
Only on the third day, when the well refused to reward their patience, did Laban's people come to the master and report the truth: Jakob had fled. The water itself was the witness.
The Maggid teaches: a righteous man does not need to announce his departure. The wells he has blessed will go dry on their own. The households that treated him poorly will notice his absence not by his empty chair, but by the sudden silence of the gifts he was quietly bringing them the whole time.