Gable and her young assistant, stood three feet away near the dining room archway with heavy brass tea trays propped against their aprons.

“Stop right there, Nora,” Christopher called out, his loud voice bouncing off the high plaster ceiling.

I stopped on the bottom carpeted step and held the stack of towels tight against my chest.

“Look at the dark runner along the second-floor landing,” Christopher said, pointing one long finger up the stairwell.

“I swept the runner at seven this morning,” I said.

“There are bright blue wool threads from that child’s blanket scattered from the nursery door all the way to my uncle’s doorway,” Christopher said, his voice ringing through the open space.