After listening for footsteps, John moved up the stairs and around the corner far enough to be within eyesight and earshot of Mary and Sam.
"Sammy, can you give me a hand downstairs?" he asked, "it'll just take a minute," then moved back around the corner and headed back downstairs before he got a response, certain that Sam would either come on his own, or Mary'd get Sam in this direction with a motherly push.
"He's on his way," he mouthed to the assembled gathering, then took up a spot at once edge of the room.