She spent some time standing in front of a massive cabinet with horizontally glass-fronted shelves before working up the courage to open it up and pull out a delicate soup bowl—white, with a pattern of pink flowers and tender green vines, edged in gold. At the bottom of the dish, the letters AIE were also painted in gold. There was a stack of books near the china.

She returned to the first row he had taken her to and looked at the long green ledgers. Some contained orders of groceries and household supplies. These people went through a lot of food on the weekends—endless lemons and oranges and eggs and mint for drinks. Massive orders of cigarettes to be put in cigarette dispensers. Notes of dozens of smashed champagne glasses and orders of fresh ones. Floor wax for the scuffs in the ballroom.

One book just contained household menus. Stevie paged through until she found April 13, 1936. It was written in a neat, precise hand:

MAIN TABLE:

Crème de céleri soup

Filet of sole with sauce amandine

Roast lamb

Minted peas

Asparagus hollandaise

Potatoes lyonnaise

Cold lemon soufflé

April 14 was not as elaborate:

No main table service. Tray taken to office.

Sandwiches of cold chicken and ham salad

Sliced celery and stuffed olives

Lemon cake

Coffee

Guest, Miss Flora Robinson, tray service: clear soup, tea with milk, tomato juice, sandwiches of cold chicken salad, sliced celery, junket

Guest, Mr. Leonard Nair, tray service: scrambled eggs, coffee

Insignificant though this may have seemed, it gave a sense of the day and the change in the household. Everything had been going along as normal on the thirteenth. On the fourteenth, it was a different place. The tray of cold sandwiches, thrown together because they had to eat to keep going. The weird addition of just some sliced celery that had probably been around from the day before and some olives (eat anything, anything, whatever is there), some cake that was probably already made. The coffee to keep them going.

Flora Robinson and Leo Holmes Nair seemed to have eaten in their rooms, simple foods, foods you ate when you were sick or hungover. Scrambled eggs. Broth. And more coffee and tea. Just stay awake. The whole house, crackling with nervous energy, waiting for the phone to ring. And still, the butler recorded it, this desperate meal, because that was how things were done. The kitchen staff had probably been questioned as well, so they didn’t have as much time to prepare food.

She worked her way along the row, pulling out boxes of old office supplies—three telephones, rolled maps, wax tubes, telephone directories. One large, velvet-lined box held a number of items that seemed unique—a crystal ink pot, a fine pen, pushpins, paper clips, a stack of business cards, an invitation to a dinner party on October 31, 1938.

That was a meaningful date. These were the things that must have been on his desk when he died. She shuffled through them, the notepad with some circles and numbers drawn on it, with drips of ink on the page. A bit of ripped newspaper with information about the stock exchange. A Western Union telegraph slip with the words:

10/30/38

Where do you look for someone who’s never really there?

Always on a staircase but never on a stair

His last riddle, with no solution given. On the thirtieth of October, 1938, Albert Ellingham told his secretary that he was going for a sail. He seemed strangely bright that day. He took George Marsh, his loyal friend, with him. They sailed out of Burlington Yacht Club. Later that evening, residents of South Hero heard a boom and saw a flash on the water. Ellingham’s boat had exploded. The wreckage revealed a bomb had been placed on board. The anarchists who had long dogged him, who had been blamed for the murder of his wife and the disappearance of his child, seemed to have gotten him in the end.

Last things were so strange. Most people had no control over or concept of what their last acts would be. She wondered for a moment if Hayes had realized what was happening to him, that he was going to die while filming a video at school.

For a moment, she remembered the letter on the wall, her vision. It had seemed so real, but there was no way it could be. It made no sense. It had simply been a vivid dream caused by a racing mind. Stevie did not believe in psychics, in precognition. She didn’t think she had seen Hayes’s death coming. The word murder had appeared in her dream, but that was because murders happened here. There was nothing spooky about it. She dreamed of a murder, there was a murder. Albert Ellingham wrote a riddle, as he did many times, and then he died.

She stared at the little telegram slip for a long time, examining the words, the ink, the old but well-preserved paper. This must have been Ellingham’s last riddle, something he was working on the day he died. A little bit of nonsense, a return to his old way of being. And then fate interrupted. Had anyone noticed this before, this little bit of detritus from his desk? Or did no one care about his little games in the wake of his death, when the great empire had to be managed? Who cares about a little riddle when one of the richest men in the world dies?

Stevie carefully put the slip of paper back in the box, like she was setting a flower on his grave. Her eyes teared up a bit and her throat grew rough.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and went over to one of the windows and looked out over the expanse of the campus and the view beyond. Death had come to Ellingham again. Death loved this place. But if Stevie was going to cope with being here, cope with the job she wanted to do, she had to look death in the eye. She could not be afraid, or cry whenever she saw a sad memento. She had to be tough. That’s what the dead deserved.

But, Stevie wondered, what was the solution to the riddle? What was always on a staircase but never on a stair?

* * *

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

INTERVIEW BETWEEN AGENT SAMUEL ARNOLD AND GEORGE MARSH

APRIL 17, 1936, 5:45 P.M.

LOCATION: ELLINGHAM PROPERTY

SA:Thank you for taking the time to speak to me again.

GM: Whatever you need me for.

SA:This has been a difficult few days.

GM: I haven’t slept in two nights. Doesn’t matter. Iris and Alice are still out there. Can I have one of your cigarettes?

SA:Of course. Can I just go over your relationship to Albert Ellingham and the safety concerns in the past? You were with the New York police department when you met?

GM: That’s right. I was a detective. We’d been working an anarchist gang that was causing trouble. We found out that they were planning to bomb an important industrialist. We found out it was Albert Ellingham, and luckily I got there in time.

SA:You personally saved his life moments before the car exploded.

GM: I did my job. After that, Mr. Ellingham was kind enough to recommend me for the FBI. I worked out of the New York office. You ever work out of New York?

SA:No. Only Washington. Director Hoover sent me up here to work this case.

GM: Mr. Ellingham asked me to come up to Vermont when he built this place. I do field work for the bureau and I consult for him.

SA:But you don’t live here in the house.

GM: No. I live in Burlington. I come here whenever Mr. Ellingham needs me. I usually come up when important guests are here. I was here for the party that weekend, mostly because Maxine Melville, the film star, was here. He wants to sign her for his studio, so he had her come up for a visit. The weekend party was mostly to entertain her. I watch the place, watch for press, make sure the staff don’t get too nosy. They’re pretty good, but people get strange around famous people.