Life seemed to go on. Miss Ruth Parrish, from Stockton-on-Tees, who had been the live-in housekeeper since November 1926, recalled that her employer was speaking ‘in a queer manner’ on Monday 9 January 1927. He was worrying about the untidiness of his daughters who threw things about the house. But later that day, he seemed unconcerned about it and laughed it off.