I Am the Only Running Footman

by Martha Grimes

  “The Running Footman would have closed shortly after that. She’d have taken a cab to her flat in Bayswater, wouldn’t she?”

  Marr smiled ruefully. “Knowing Ivy, she might have taken the underground. Cheaper.”

  “You came directly home?”

  Marr sighed. “Yes, of course. It’s only a few minutes’ walk. When I got here I called my sister, Marion. Talked for some time, but to no avail. I needed money.”

  “You said money was one of the things you quarreled with Ivy Childess about.”

  “That’s right. I tried to borrow some.”

  “But surely Ivy Childess wouldn’t have had the sort you might need.”

  Marr laughed. “If it has Her Majesty’s face on it, I need it. The odd tailor here and there. A few gambling debts. Ivy would not dip into the money from her uncle’s annuity; told me I should be gainfully employed. Yes, that’s the way she put it: gainfully employed. I have never been employed. Much less gainfully. Work, good Lord.”

  “Yes, that does seem a dim future.”

  “That sort of irony exactly matches my sister’s. She tells me I’m running through my share of our father’s money with a speed that would have earned me a rowing Blue. Our solicitors do not like to advance me more than a sum which would hardly pay for the liquor.” This reminder of drink sent him back to the table laden with bottles, where he found a measure or two of whiskey and poured it out.

  Jury made another note in a worn pigskin notebook that Racer had in one of his rare moments of largess given him several Christmases ago. Or perhaps it wasn’t largess, just a hint to get to work. “You said you called your sister. Could you give me her number?”

  “You’re not going to bother old Marion with this, are you? Oh, very well.” He raked his fingers through his hair, sighed, and gave Jury the number. “It’s ex-directory, so don’t lose it.” His smile came and vanished in a second. “She’s not going to be happy about corroborating my alibi, if that’s what you call it.”

  “You said ‘after you got home’? Exactly when after?”

  “After the rest of this, I suppose.” He held up the glass and turned it so that the whiskey ran round it in a little wave.

  “Could you be more exact?” Jury asked mildly, quite sure that the man’s offensive carelessness over the girl’s death was pretty much facade. Underneath it, he was frightened, but how much, Jury couldn’t guess.

  He closed his eyes. “A little after eleven, perhaps. Don’t hold it to me, Superintendent. Marion would know. She was sober. Always is, worse luck. Her name is Winslow and they have a place in Sussex, in Somers Abbas. Look, Superintendent. Couldn’t you just leave old Marion out of this?”

  “You want me to be discreet, that it?”

  The clear, wide-eyed look on his handsome face made Marr look as if he’d just come wandering in from larking with a bag of kittens down at the lake. Wonderfully innocent and sly. “Oh, would you? I’d cooperate all over the place. You can question me for hours —”

  “I would do, anyway.”

  “You’re not going to cooperate, I can tell. I have reservations for Tuesday next for Cannes, but I expect I shan’t be permitted to leave the country now. Cigarette?” He looked at Jury’s.

  Jury tossed him the pack. “My guess is you called Mrs. Winslow because you were anxious to pay your tailor and she couldn’t see eye-to-eye, that right?”

  “Clever of you. Well, I was dead drunk, wasn’t I?”

  “Oh?”

  Marr looked at him through the small spiral of smoke. “ ‘Oh?’ What’s that supposed to mean? You’re worse than Marion.”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’ll bet. Well, there’s plenty of money. Although I curse the arrangement at least once a day, I suppose our father was smarter than I like to give him credit for, not putting it up for grabs. The bulk of my own inheritance is contingent upon my marrying.” He sounded rueful, then added, “Am I giving myself a motive for murder?”

  “The opposite, I’d say.”

  “Good; let’s keep it that way. As it is, I can only dip into the family treasure chest four times a year. This quarter’s not up until December thirty-first, worse luck.” He looked at a calendar attached to a bulletin board above a handsome lacquered desk. Jury could see that it held photos, cards, other bits and pieces of memorabilia. “Mind if I have a look?”

  “Hm? Oh, no, of course not. I’ll just have a lie-down.” His head fell back on the chair and he rolled his whiskey glass across his brow.

  The bulletin board was, Jury saw with a smile, more like the carefully chosen junk of an undergraduate, or the sort of lot one might expect to find in a youngster’s shoebox of treasures: photos, of course; colorful and witless postcards such as people loved to send from their holiday spots in the West Country, or the Riviera, Monte Carlo, Las Vegas, Cannes.

  “Been to the States?”

  David looked round to the bulletin board. “No.”

  “You have friends there, then?” He nodded toward the card of a Vegas casino.

  “No. An acquaintance or two. My friends go to Monte or Cannes, Superintendent.”

  Jury smiled. “Sorry. Didn’t know there was much to choose amongst them.” He continued scanning the board. A menu from Rules, a silver garter, telephone numbers on scraps of paper tacked about. Jury was more interested in the snapshots. “Is this your sister?”

  With a wince, David turned his head. “Yes, and the rest of the family. That’s my nephew and my sister’s husband, Hugh.”

  It had been taken in a garden; they all looked very pleased with themselves, as if they were delighted to have met and had their picture taken. Another snap showed David Marr with the same young man, both of them laughing, holding what looked like tennis racquets. There were no photos of Marr by himself, none with Ivy Childess.

  “Would you mind if I just borrowed these two?”

  David was about to cadge another cigarette from Jury’s pack. “What? No, I don’t mind, I suppose. Just make sure I get them back, that’s all.”

  “I will.”

  “What do you want them—? Oh, never mind. To show round, I expect. You’re probably convinced I dragged Ivy into a dark street and — what did happen, Superintendent?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. Was there anyone else in the pub you knew?”

  He started to shake his head, but then said, “Yes, there was Paul. Paul Swann. He lives down the street. If he hadn’t been in the Running Footman, I’d have stopped in to talk to him, worse luck.”

  “Perhaps I’ll stop in to talk to him.”

  “Can’t. He’s not there. Said he was leaving for Brighton at dawn.”

  “Where in Brighton?”

  David scratched his head. “Don’t know. Maybe it’s Rottingdean. That’s more artistic; he’s a painter.”

  Jury made a note, and said, “Then as far as you know, Miss Childess simply left when the pub closed. Did you have any friends in common? Acquaintances?”

  He frowned and slid down in the chair. “No.”

  “You knew of no one she considered an enemy?”

  David Marr shook his head and picked up the flannel. He dipped it in what remained of his drink and slapped it on his forehead.

  “You know, you seem more irritated by Ivy Childess’s death than unhappy.” Jury rose to leave.

  The flannel moved as David Marr said, “Good God, Superintendent, I’m not irritated. I’m dying.” He pulled the cloth from his face, gave Jury a weak smile and asked, “Got another fag?”

  5

  FIONA Clingmore sat at her desk with a mirror propped up against a dictionary, applying her eyeliner with the solemnity of one taking the veil. The hand that held the thin wand of lipstick was steadied by the other, and the prayerful pose further enhanced the similarity. That prayerful pose and the black scarf holding back her heavy yellow curls were about as close as Fiona would ever get to a nunnery.

  Watching over her small arsenal of beauty product
s was the cat Cyril, who never seemed to tire of tracking the daily metamorphosis, as if expecting a butterfly to emerge from this black cocoon.

  Cyril took his cue from Jury’s entrance and slid from the desk. The cat knew by now that this foreshadowed admittance to Racer’s office — hallowed ground, strictly off cat-limits.

  “Hullo, Fiona,” said Jury.

  Realizing that Jury was standing there smiling, she deposited the tissue on which she had blotted her lips in the dustbin. Then she quickly pulled the black square from her head and a neat set of yellow curls sprang forth. Just as deftly, she swept the makeup into the black well of her purse. Permed and polished, she turned to Jury.

  “You’re early. Want some tea?”

  “Thanks. Did you get that file from forensics?”

  “Mmm.” With the hot water pot in one hand and a chipped cup in the other, she nodded toward her desk. She swirled the teabag and handed Jury the cup.

  “What’s he on about, then?” asked Jury, long used to conferences with his superior that left him feeling older but none the wiser.

  “I don’t know, do I?” It was less a shrugging off of Jury’s question than an indication that their superior was seldom on about anything that either wanted to know. Having inspected a fingernail, she got her manicure scissors. Fiona went at any imperfection quickly and summarily; she reminded Jury of a water-colorist alert to sudden shifts in shade and lighting who had to move in before the paint dried.

  “I’ll wait inside.” Jury took his tea and the file and, accompanied by the cat Cyril, went into his chief’s office, which Fiona apparently was “airing out” again, for the window behind the desk was open a few inches. Between his hand-rolled cigars and his hand-grown lectures, Racer managed to use up all the excess oxygen. Cyril leapt to the sill and flattened himself so that he could make swipes at the falling snowflakes.

  Jury looked without interest round the office. Nothing had changed except that a small mountain of Christmas gifts was piled up on the fake-leather couch. Jury took out a fresh pack of Players. Cyril, who had managed to squeeze all the way out to the outside sill, tired of his daredevil acrobatics, pulled himself back, and made a perfect high-dive for the floor. His flirtation with death grew bolder every year; when the outside door opened, he pricked up his ears, snaked across the carpet, and settled down with a rustle behind the pyramid of gifts on the couch.

  Chief Superintendent A. E. Racer made his usual abrasive comments to Fiona Clingmore before he came in to look suspiciously at the pile of gifts, as if Jury might have nicked one in his absence.

  “Happy Christmas,” said Jury pleasantly, as Racer deposited several folders on his desk and sat down.

  “Not for me it isn’t,” he said, waving his arm across the active files he was carrying. Action, Jury knew, would be taken elsewhere. “What progress have you made on this Childess case?” Without stopping for an answer, Racer said, “Couldn’t you shut up the press, at least?”

  “Can anyone? I made no comment.”

  “With this rag you don’t have to.” He waved a tabloid in Jury’s face and then read: “ ‘Garroted with her own scarf.’ Hell. Every villain in London — rapists, muggers — will have a nice, neat way to go about his business.”

  “Well, it might warn women not to toss their scarves down their backs.”

  “A bit late in the day for that, isn’t it?”

  As if Jury had failed to issue the warning, had alerted the papers.

  Racer crossed his arms, encased in what looked like cashmere from his bespoke tailor, and leaned toward Jury. “As for you, Jury —”

  It was ritual, like Cyril’s storming of the battlements. As for you —

  “— do you think this time you could depend on police for your backup? Rather than deputizing your friends?” For Racer, Melrose Plant’s role in that Hampshire business was a brand-new drum to bang. “Do you realize I’m still catching flack from the commissioner about that?”

  “He did save my life.”

  Finding nothing here that merited a response, Racer went on to test the waters of Jury’s career, keeping as much as he could to the shallows. The career had probably come up in Racer’s meeting with the assistant commissioner and would be bobbing up again, as it was now. “Understand Hodges is retiring. Picked a fine time for it, I must say.”

  There would be for Racer, of course, some personal affront to the lawkeeping forces of Greater London in what he seemed to think was Divisional Commander Hodges’s capricious decision. That it left a district minus one of its divisional commanders was a point that Racer would sooner skirt around. For Racer it would be a real quandary if Jury were promoted. Having Jury around was like having a mirror in which a face formed out of smoke reminding Racer that someone fairer still lived; on the other hand, the removal of Jury was the removal of Jury’s expertise, which now reflected happily upon Racer.

  He was still talking about N Division. “Wouldn’t have it on a bet, myself, not with its spilling over into Brixton. Riots, that’s what anyone can expect with that thankless job.” He went on. . . .

  Jury tuned him out, turning his attention to the pyramid of gifts that had shifted slightly, and wondered, with a momentary pang of envy, at Cyril’s determination to outwit the forces leveled against him. Racer was descending the ladder of Jury’s career and would soon move from the CID to the uniform branch and have Jury back walking a beat. Jury, though, was way ahead of, or way behind him, in that sense. He wondered, with a feeling of guilt, at his own lack of ambition. He had nearly had to be shoved into a superintendency as it was. Perhaps it was the season; Christmas had never been any reason for rejoicing, except for one or two that might have started well, but ended miserably. Or perhaps it was the sky. Jury watched the snow drift down in big, feathery flakes that wouldn’t stick, that would turn to gray slush by nightfall and drain away. He remembered the two boys, fourteen or fifteen they’d been, that he’d nicked twenty years ago for shoplifting in a sweet shop. They’d looked very pale and uncertain and reminded him of himself a dozen years earlier, younger even than they, when the owner of a similar shop had caught him leaving the store with a small box of Black Magic chocolates making a bulge in his anorak. He’d been easier on the teenagers than the shopkeeper had been on him, the way he’d called in police. Set an example. The aunt who’d just taken Richard in had been mortified.

  The girl’s name had been Ivy, he suddenly recalled. It was Ivy he’d wanted to give the sweets to as a Christmas present. But this sentiment hadn’t softened the set of his aunt’s mouth. His uncle had been a gentle man, one who made allowances, especially for a nephew whose own parents had been killed in the war. But his uncle’s disappointment, the woeful look he cast upon the boy Richard, had been more difficult to bear than a physical blow.

  Well, it wasn’t nicking sweets anymore, he thought with an almost overwhelming remorse, as the pale face of the pretty girl lying in the street came back to him. Ivy. The name was probably the reason that memory had floated to mind.

  “. . . Jury! Can you stop woolgathering long enough to answer the question?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I asked you if Phyllis Nancy had done the autopsy.”

  “No, not yet. Tomorrow morning.”

  “What the hell’s she waiting for, her medical degree?” Racer slapped open the top folder once again. “So all we know about this Childess woman is that she lived in Bayswater, had a row with her boyfriend in this pub off Berkeley Square, and that he left her there.” He shut the folder and leaned back. “You knew all that last night, Jury.”

  “Then perhaps I’d better be getting on with it? Anything else?” He unfolded himself from the chair and got up, casting his eye toward the couch.

  “Well, when you do turn up something, lad, would you kindly let me know?”

  “Be happy to.” Jury eyed the small tower of gifts and turned to go. When he reached the door he heard it — them: the collapse of the boxes like a house of cards, the spi
llage, the voice of Racer shouting at the cat Cyril, the intercom and the voice of Racer shouting at Fiona.

  Calmly, Jury opened the door and Cyril streaked through before him, another game-plan successfully executed.

  • • •

  “He’s in a right temper now,” said Fiona, filing her nails, undisturbed by the squawking intercom. Cyril had leapt to the windowsill behind her to have a wash as the telephone rang.

  Fiona picked it up, spoke, then held it toward Jury. The black receiver looked like an extension of her darkly varnished nails. It fairly dripped from her hand. “It’s Al.”

  Jury took the receiver, wondering if anyone else at headquarters besides Fiona called Detective Sergeant Wiggins by his first name. “Wiggins?”

  The voice of Wiggins was adenoidal, but precise. “I’ve come up with something, sir. I was just checking in the computer room —” The pause then was not for dramatic effect but to allow the sergeant to rustle a bit of cellophane from a box. He apparently had completed his delicate maneuver, for now the voice was clotted. “ ’N du-v’n’n, s’r —”

  “Shove the cough drop under your tongue, Wiggins,” said Jury patiently.

  “Oh. Sorry, sir. It was this case about ten months ago, end of February. Young woman by the name of Sheila Broome. Well, I would have passed straight over it except for the description of the body in situ. Police made sure there was no publicity because they were afraid of copy-cat murders. For good reason. She was found in a wooded area off the A303, just near the turn-off to Taunton. She’d been strangled, apparently with her own scarf. Well, it could be a coincidence —”

  Jury stared blindly at Cyril, who was pressing one paw and then the other against the big snowflakes drifting against the windowpane. A serial killer. The worst kind. “Let’s hope so. Get on to headquarters in Somerset.”

  “Police in Somerset wouldn’t be handling it, sir. It’s right over the border.” Pause. “In Devon.”

  “Well, call Exeter, then.”

  There was another pause and a tiny rattle of paper. This seemed to be a two-cough-drop problem. Said Wiggins, wanly: “You don’t suppose it’s Macalvie’s case, do you, sir?”