I Am the Only Running Footman (14 page)

His eye was caught by another photo that looked like an enlargement of the same snapshot he had borrowed from Marr's flat. David and Edward caught suddenly in a moment of laughter. They were wearing tennis sweaters, and Ned's hand held tightly to the handle of a racquet that disappeared over his shoulder. From the position of both Jury guessed they must have had their arms about one another's shoulders. One had won, one had lost, both were happy.

“Edward is very fond of David, isn't he?”

“Extremely.
And,
believe it or not, so is David of Edward.”

Jury replaced the photo. “Why ‘believe it or not?”

“Only because David so loves to adopt that cynical air. Don't you believe it.”

“I don't.”

“Because he's got a passionate enough nature to do murder?”

“I didn't mean that.”

Jury replaced the photograph; she picked up the bit of notebook paper; a silence fell. He felt somehow awkward, sitting here drinking the dregs of his whiskey — he felt a chump, actually, but didn't know why. He looked from his glass to the silky surface of a Belgian tapestry that seemed to ripple in the light from the high windows like the crests of incoming waves. Through the twilit panes he saw the snow had stopped. The beeches stood in a dark column, but now they were ash-brown. Screened by snow they had looked black. The surface of things could be deceptive.

“Mr. Jury?”

Jury looked up. She had gone to the window to fasten the catch and pull the heavy curtains together, almost as if she hadn't wanted him to see this metamorphosis at dusk. Her head was tilted slightly as if she were trying to see his eyes. “Sorry. I suppose I was woolgathering.”

She smiled. “Don't apologize. I do it all the time.”

Her attempt to seem at ease was very studied, he thought.

“I'm not trying to get away from you. But I just thought perhaps you had no more questions.”

“You're right, none.” Standing before the window, her hands lightly laced before her and with her very dark hair and pale complexion, Marion Winslow gave the impression of one whom great misfortune had made very quiet but very sure. Capable, perhaps, of nearly anything. Lying would come easily to her to protect someone, because the old rules no longer applied, the moral element had shifted like sand.
He had risen too, of course, and said, “Thank you very much, Mrs. Winslow. I would like to have a look round, if you don't mind.”

She nodded. “I'll send Ned along to show you whatever you want to see.”

He returned the nod. As she walked in those clothes of mourning, her back straight, across to the door, he thought that Marion Winslow was a woman upon whom society could no longer intrude. She had locked the windows, drawn the curtains, shut the door.

T
HE
gallows sign of the Mortal Man creaked eerily in the wind and the snow, lit by a dull metal lamp that lent its sickle-curve of light to the mortality of the sallow-faced figure in the sign. The light spilling from the windows of the inn's public bar was no brighter, no more cheerful. It crept round the edges and through the slits of a boarded-up window, whose shutters banged as fretfully as did the sign. No matter that during the day, the Mortal Man must have belonged to the pretty picture cut by the village green, the duckpond, the row of thatched-roof cottages beyond — here, in the dark and the cold it looked vacant, transient, divested of an inn's life and good cheer.

•  •  •

Inside, this impression was quickly dispelled. There was surely enough life to go round the green and back several times over. A cacophony of shouting voices met him — or rather, blasted past him, in the person of a woman, a youngish girl, a younger boy with a dog. The dog stopped when he saw Jury, as smartly as if he'd run into a wall, ran madly three times around Jury's legs, and continued, yapping, after the boy.

In another minute, this happy quartet rushed back from the other direction, apparently not having solved their logistical problem, if that were the problem. The dog remembered to run around Jury's legs again, in some sort of magical incantation, before it zipped off after the others.

“The common form of greeting at the Mortal Man,” said Melrose Plant, who appeared in the doorway of the public bar, smiling broadly, smoking one of his small cigars. “They'll be back; you escaped serious damage this time, but don't press your luck.” Plant motioned him in. “The St. Clairs have saved you, possibly, a trip to the Steeples. Count yourself twice fortunate.”

•  •  •

Behind the bar, the burly owner appeared to be comparing notes with a tall man who sat with three glasses before him at a nearby table. He was introduced to Jury as St. John St. Clair, and the young woman next to him as the daughter, Lucinda. The gentleman behind the bar, who was slapping his bar towel around, apparently on the track of a fly, snapped it so smartly at the mirror that a patch of the gilt frame fell off.

Jury's offer to stand drinks was met with a sad head-shake by St. Clair. He had tried, he said, studying the three glasses before him, all of the Warboyses' stock of Irish whiskey. They had been found wanting. This was, of course, no reflection on Mr. Warboys but on the general instability of that country. The chief difference between the innkeeper and his unhappy guest was that one had a round, red face; the other, a sad, long one. For both, Armageddon was drawing near.

Nathan Warboys lost no time in trying to persuade Jury that, if he had any plans for marrying, he should drop them immediately. “Take my Sally. I mean, I mean, don't think I don't know what that 'un's always on about. Out she goes, every night, dressed like a dog's dinner.”

Apparently, the hound had taken this as a call to the front, for he streaked across the room and grabbed St. Clair's walking stick between his teeth with an almighty growl. As he pulled and growled, the handle caught on the narrow table leg, sending table and drinks spilling about. Nathan Warboys picked up a piece of the wood stacked against the counter and let it fly, barely missing Melrose's head, then said someone would be in to mop up the mess.

Melrose hoped not. St. Clair took it quite philosophically, dabbing at his shirt and picking up the conversation where Nathan had dropped it. “You are right, of course, Mr. Warboys. Marriage can be an extremely sad affair, though I can't agree it is the fault of the woman. No, it is the fault of everybody. Certainly, there
are
wives — not yours, not mine, at least not yet — who do cause the most dreadful trouble. Why, look at poor Marion —”

“Marion's never caused any trouble, Daddy.”

“She
hasn't, no. We know of no trouble at all
she's
caused. The fact Hugh stays away must be owing to something else, but we don't want to talk about that. They don't make cloth like they used to; I doubt this stain will come out.” He patted his tie with the bar towel. “I'm speaking of that person that poor David is accused of murdering. What a perfectly dreadful mess.”

“Did you know her, Mr. St. Clair?” asked Jury.

Nathan Warboys topped up his glass and said, “You want to stay away from them kind, you do.”

“No, I didn't. Fortunately. Though I believe Lucinda did.”

When Jury turned to her, Lucinda said, “I met her once, Ivy Childess. I hardly knew her. It was at a little party in Knightsbridge.” Eagerly, she leaned toward Jury and said, “David couldn't
possibly
have done that. It's just not in his nature to do something so — awful.”

There was no question that Plant had been right about Lucinda St. Clair's attachment to David Marr. Jury wondered
how far it might take her, that attachment. “Do you visit the Winslow house much, then? Do you go up to London, Miss St. Clair?”

“Hardly ever,” said Lucinda.

“Best you don't, my dear,” said her father. “And don't forget Edward's misfortune,” St. Clair went on, his sonorous voice blending with the hollow sound of the bell in the village church tolling the hour.

Warboys, a toothpick jumping about in his mouth, said, “You mean that there wife of his, a right treat, weren't she? Just up and left and never a good-bye, and never a word since. Well, that were a long time ago, weren't it? Still, it's some way for a wife to act, just leavin' without so much's a word.” Nathan then seemed to be reconsidering the merits of this unwifely behavior when his own wife appeared to shout out last calls for dinner.

The St. Clairs left; Plant and Jury walked across the hall to the dining room, while from upstairs came a series of small crashes.

“It's just a Warboys, straightening up your room,” said Melrose.

•  •  •

“You are being treated to an evening of the Warboyses in full revel.” Melrose Plant repositioned his cutlery and tucked up his threadbare dinner napkin.

Jury squinted his eyes. “Never,
never
have I seen you eat a meal with a napkin under your chin.”

“That's because you've never seen me dine with the Warboyses.” He lifted his roll, found it rock-hard, and hit it with the handle of his knife. “There!” The roll splintered and crumbled on the plate. “The Warboyses have unleashed my taste for violence.”

“Are they joining us, then?” asked Jury, who had reached down to scratch Osmond behind the ears.

“Probably.” Melrose lifted the edge of the tablecloth to look at the hound, napping happily at Jury's feet. “That dog must be dead.”

The dining room was more festive than usual; they were not the only occupants of the room: in a far corner sat a man and woman who had no doubt been lured in by the announcement outside that an “English dinner plus all the trimmings” awaited them. The Warboyses' idea of “traditional” probably ran more to Sainsbury fruitcake than homemade Yorkshire pudding, Melrose thought. He observed that his and Jury's companions-in-adventure were quite silent, looking at the black panes through which they could see nothing but their own reflections. Married, he assumed, and hoped he wasn't stereotyping the couple. But he wondered why married folk always seemed uncomfortable when they dined in public, as if afraid that someone would think they'd just come from a steamy assignation if they looked at each other.

A string of white lights made an arc at the top of the window; the Warboyses' stockings were nailed to the mantel. Melrose had watched Bobby Warboys going at them hell-for-leather, all the while blathering out his complaints, as if he were nailing the entire season to a tree. A small Christmas tree with tiny winking lights sat amongst some souvenirs on a shelf overhead—a flowered bottle of green glass with the legend
A Present from Wells-Next-the-Sea;
several little photos of what looked to be absent Warboyses; one live plant and one in its throes; a stuffed red fox with its one good eye trained on Melrose (the other probably having been shot out by Nathan); a bowl of plastic fruit, whose grapes, Melrose said, must have given this particular wine its special piquancy. By the dining-room door sat a cross-eyed porcelain leopard, bedecked with tinsel. All oddments culled from some jumble sale, it looked like.

“Where's our soup?” said Melrose, twisting round to stare down the kitchen door.

On cue, Mrs. Warboys charged through it with two plates of soup. Short, stout, pale, she had been turned by the kitchen catastrophe into a quivering, livid mass. She put Melrose in mind of a mad blancmange. The soup slopped up the sides of the bowls when she set it down and announced the entree selection: “Veal cutlet, toad-in-the-hole, and Bombay duck.” She flicked a glance right and left to see how each of them took it.

Melrose looked at Jury who said, “Oh, go ahead.”

“I'll try it, though Bombay duck is hardly my idea of your
traditional
Christmas dinner. I was thinking more along the lines of some nice, rare roast beef.” He smiled so hard he thought he'd grow dimples.

“Aye, 'tis. But we're out.”

“Out?”

Mrs. Warboys nodded over her shoulder in the direction of the couple at the window. “Them two's ‘ad the last bit.”

“But they're the only others here.”

All the while keeping an eye on them, Jury smiled and sipped his wine, a bottle that Melrose had wrestled from Nathan's stock. Everything that the Warboyses owned was considered their personal treasure, from the blind-eyed fox to the indifferent wine. “Toad-in-the-hole for me, Mrs. Warboys,” said Jury.

“Yessir.” She smoothed out her apron and her frown and nearly curtsied. Then she clutched the tray to her bosom and tramped off, some of the steam having decompressed.

“Toad-in-the-bloody-
hofe
? You'll be sorry. It's probably real.”

“Haven't had any of that since my days in Good Hope.”

“Isn't that the euphemism for that chilly institution you spent your childhood in? It's always sounded to me like a Siberian winter.”

“It was.”

Since the kitchen door worked both ways, Mrs. Warboys's
exit provided for William's entrance. He sped by the table. “You seen Sally?” he asked of them, though he'd never seen Jury until that moment. No, they hadn't. “She's gone and forgot the spuds for supper.” He wheeled away.

“Who's Sally?”

“Another Warboys, the woods are full of them.” Melrose continued spooning up his soup.

Jury drank his wine. “Give me your impression of the Winslow family.”

“I don't think David Marr has much of an alibi, to tell the truth.”

“There was a call; we traced it.”

“Yes, but there's also an answering machine. Not even Telecom, incredibly efficient as it is when it comes to tracking down delinquent payments, could tell you who or what answered, could it? Only that a connection was made.”

Jury was silent for a minute. “And you think Marion Winslow is lying.”