‘Doesn’t make sense,’ he said, ‘does it? A body doesn’t just disappear like that. It has to be somewhere.’

Douglas said: ‘He couldn’t have been dead, in that case. Catalepsy. Haven’t there been cases where people have been put in their coffins, and then recovered?’

‘Yes,’ Hamilton said, ‘so I’ve heard. Mind you, Selby said he was dead, and he ought to know. And he looked dead to me – as dead as anything I’ve ever seen. But we could have been wrong. The point is: where is he? If the kid woke up, found himself lying down there on a table, he’d go up to his mother, wouldn’t he? Or make some row, at any rate. But there’s just no sign of him. Far as I can make out, Ruth woke, and felt she must go and have another look at him. And found nothing there.’

Elizabeth said: ‘He might be badly shocked, surely. He might not quite know what he was doing. Gone off somewhere to hide.’

‘Yes,’ Hamilton said, ‘that’s the only way it starts to make sense to me, too. That’s why I’ve asked you all to come down. We’ll have to hunt round the house till we find him. All the cupboards, under the beds. I’ll do our floor, and Peter will do the attics. The rest of you do the first floor. Then we’ll all have another good look around the lower regions.’

Diana stayed close to her, and she stayed near Douglas. Elizabeth, who searched the first floor with them, made a separate check. Aware of her own weakness and uneasiness, Jane felt a touch of resentment at the other woman’s capability and calm. It was hard to imagine anything ruffling her. She chided herself for her lack of charity, and furiously pulled dresses to one side in her wardrobe-cupboard.

Diana objected: ‘He can’t be in there.’

‘We’re supposed to look everywhere.’ She detected a sharpness in her voice, too, and said more quietly: ‘We’re directly under the Deepings’ room. He might have mistaken the floor, then got scared and gone into the cupboard.’