Five minutes later, there was another knock on the door. Oh, for goodness’ sake. He’d never get anything done at this rate.

‘Come!’ he yelled.

It was Mrs Mason. ‘I see you found your watch then, Sir?’

Joseph glanced at his wrist. ‘Ah, yes. Turned up in the nursery. Rudi the magpie had it.’

He flipped his cigar box open and then closed it again. Bad habit, starting a cigar whenever he was interrupted. It only made the interruption even longer.

Mrs Mason was clearing her throat. ‘I wondered if I might ask you something, Sir?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I could do with more help in the house. You did say, Sir, I should let you know if I thought it would be too much and what with young Rudi and now all the bank folk …’ She shrugged and looked at him.

Domestic business. Not his department.

‘Of course. But this is her Ladyship’s area. Please, if you could speak to her?’

In anticipation of Mrs Mason’s departure, he started to gather up some of the papers on his desk.

‘With respect, your Lordship, her Ladyship said to ask you. I only want another pair of hands in the kitchen.’

He sighed and put the papers down. ‘Very well. My wife informs me it’s difficult to find domestic staff these days but if you can find someone, go ahead. No Nazi sympathisers or Blackshirts, obviously!’

Mrs Mason didn’t laugh. ‘Mrs Nicholls is looking for work,’ she said.

Joseph scratched his head. Clearly, he was meant to know who Mrs Nicholls was. He was usually pretty competent at that sort of thing; he took pride in never forgetting a name or a face. But Mrs Nicholls? No, he was stumped.

Oh, blast. If he said yes and Esther didn’t like this woman, or she turned out to be a liability, his life would be hell.

‘I think perhaps—’ he started.

‘That’s Miss Tapper, as was,’ Mrs Mason interrupted, in a quiet voice. ‘Gwen Tapper.’

Joseph reached for the glass paperweight that sat on his desk between Sebastian and the telephone. It had been his mother’s and had held a fascination for him since he was a boy. He often toyed with it when he wanted to think.

Inside the glass globe was a perfect white dandelion clock, frozen in time. It fitted snugly into the palm of his hand. There was something soothing about its weight and its cool, smooth surface.

‘Gwen Tapper. I see,’ he said. ‘But I thought she’d come back to the village to nurse her sick mother?’

‘She did, Sir, but her mother’s passed on. She was eighty-two, Sir. We all has to go at some point.’

‘True. And eighty-two is a good innings.’