‘Let’s go to look,’ said Mary to Hannah, setting down the whisk. ‘There’s bound to be an explanation,’ she added as they hurried up the corridor past the housekeeper’s room and the butler’s pantry. Both were deserted. ‘Folk don’t just disappear in the middle of the night,’ Mary continued as they walked through the breakfast room, and glanced into the dining room where the table had been cleared and reset after last night’s supper. They went into the drawing room. The blue cushions were all plumped, but the blinds were still pulled down and Sal had neglected to clean out the hearth. All three rooms were empty.

‘Where can they be?’ asked Hannah as they crossed the main hall with its cabinet of stuffed exotic birds and looked into the billiard room where the only sign of life was the score from the last game still chalked up on the board. They went up the main staircase, normally forbidden to them except for the early-morning dusting, and tapped on the bedroom doors before opening them. No one was there. It was as Sal had said. Drawers and wardrobes were left open and the beds were untouched with the covers still folded back for bedtime.

‘Moonlight flit,’ said Mary.

‘No.’ Hannah knew of people who’d done that. But they were poor folk who couldn’t afford to pay their rent, who disappeared in the middle of the night with a few belongings piled on to the back of a cart, to avoid their debts. ‘People like the Sudells don’t do that.’

‘What other explanation is there?’ asked Mary and Hannah had to admit that she couldn’t think of one.

They went down the stairs and back to the kitchen to find Robert, the hall boy, sitting at the table with Sal drinking tea and eating buttered toast.

‘They’ve gone,’ he said.

‘We can see that,’ Mary told him. ‘Dost tha know why?’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I woke in the night with all the kerfuffle from the yard and went to see what were afoot. Old Cox shoved me back inside and told me to keep my trap shut. He said Mr Sudell has lost all his money and wanted to leave afore he were found out because of the shame of it.’

‘Lost his money?’ said Hannah. ‘How could he lose his money?’ It wasn’t like a sixpence slipping out of his pocket, she thought. They said that he had a million pounds.

‘Bought too much cotton,’ said Rob. ‘He had it stockpiled, but now that the price has fallen he can’t make his money back. He’s bankrupt. There’s nowt left.’

‘But what about all this?’ asked Hannah. ‘The house alone must be worth a fortune.’

‘It’ll have to be sold to pay off his debts.’

‘What about us?’ said Hannah, suddenly realising that this was her problem too.

Rob shrugged. ‘They took some of the staff – them as had been with ’em for a long time. But the rest of us are out of a job. I suppose we’ll be expected to clear out afore the bailiffs come.’