Arthur led her out of the room, holding the door open for her, and through the hall, down the broad, marble stairs into the entrance hall. "I wouldn't know the exact number, Miss Rosewine, but I will talk to the steward and let you know." He and his wife had had a hand in the hiring of the chef, the governess, the nurse, the valet, his wife's lady's maid, and the butler, as well as the steward himself. He knew the names of the gardener, the coachman, and the housekeeper. But he didn't bother himself with the lower servants, who came and went anyway, and who, if they did their job well, he would never see, unless they were summoned.

The entrance hall had a high ceiling, and grand rounded doors to the porch, white-washed walls, and large black and white checkered tiles on the floor. Light came in through two grand, high windows on either side of the entrance.

"Thank you," he said when she praised the house. "No, my family is from the York area, but it's not what it used to be, with the factories and trains polluting the air." At least it wasn't Leeds or Sheffield, or the pit of fire that was Manchester, but he still worried about the effect of such unhealthy air on the gentler sex. "When my first wife's health became poor, I decided to move the family to a more salubrious environment." Not that the old town was clean, with its consumption-plagued fishing families and jet workers living in their own excrement, but his house was located outside of town, at a safe distance.

Arthur looked around and then led them to an unobtrusive white painted door below the main stairs. He held the door open. A straight stairwell, steeper than the wide stairs above them, led down to a corridor. "Watch your steps, Miss Rosewine."