Liz Truss made a fleeting, impassive appearance in the House of Commons as her premiership appeared to crumble around her.
The prime minister had snubbed Labour’s urgent parliamentary question on Truss’s decision to to appoint Jeremy Hunt as the new chancellor – and sent Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, to deputise.
But the move raised more questions about the grip Truss has of her party.
Mordaunt’s initial explanation that the PM was “detained on urgent business” prompted howls of laughter from the Opposition benches, and failed to reassure MPs.
Stella Creasy, a Labour MP, suggested that based on what they had been told, the prime minister is “cowering under her desk and asking for it all to go away”.
Mordaunt, a one-time leadership rival who is viewed as a potential successor, caused more laughter when she replied: “Well, the prime minister is not under a desk.”
Mordaunt added to the confusion by repeatedly suggesting there was “a very good reason” for the prime minister’s no-show – which even led one MP to ask if she was “on the way to the Palace” to tell the King her government is over.
But then Truss finally arrived while Mordaunt was still speaking.
She was there, it turned out, to sit alongside her new chancellor as Hunt was due to spell out the “eye-wateringly difficult” decisions that were needed as he tore up her economic strategy.
But things got even stranger from there. Truss did not contribute to the debate, and many on social media pointed out she appeared only to be staring into the middle distance and blinking frequently.
She sat next to Hunt for around 30 minutes as he ditched huge chunks of “Trussonomics”.
But as soon as Hunt finished his Commons address and took questions from MPs, Truss departed to accusations of “running off to something else”.
So where was she?
One report suggested Truss had been meeting Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, who could hold the key to her future if Conservatives revolt en masse.