I Am the Only Running Footman (10 page)

And that the man could find conversational possibilities in a Warboys monologue was a mark of extraordinary inventiveness, even for a published poet.

As Edward Winslow smiled and shook his hand, Melrose could understand why Pearl nearly strangled on her necklace when Edward had failed to present his book personally.

Though thoughts of strangling were perhaps not in the best of taste, Melrose thought, as they walked out into the cold and the wet to Edward's car — a black BMW, of course, the Savile Row of cars. Not ostentatious, just well made and made to stick it. Melrose slid down in the back seat as the doors clunked shut, thinking of his Flying Spur, his Silver Ghost. Well, perhaps they could talk about poetry.

D
AVID
Marr was in the library getting himself drunk at ten o'clock. He was standing by a commode of lacquer and gilt bronze that looked as if it should have been in a museum instead of doing service as a drinks table.

Indeed, the entire Winslow library looked like a place in which Marshall Trueblood could have happily expired. If the house had seemed depressingly stark from the outside — rock-faced granite with all the weight of medievalism upon it overlooking a choked and tangled woods — this severity was not repeated here in the library. An Italian marble fireplace was flanked by panels of bas-relief; the upholstery was Italian cut-velvet; the wallpaper and draperies, William Morris; around the walls were family portraits, oils, watercolors, Belgian tapestries. Melrose would have liked to spend several hours with these bound volumes in arched recesses, and a few more hours studying the paintings and portraits. Beside a Belgian tapestry was what looked like a Pissaro, beside that a Millet. It was a warm and peaceful scene of a thatched-roofed inn, quite lovely, he thought, in spite of his present
doubts that thatched-roofed inns could contribute to the general happiness of the world.

David Marr held up a bottle of vodka. “Care for a saltwater?” he said, as soon as they were introduced.

Melrose smiled. “Never heard of it.”

“Two goes of vodka, same of ginger, splash of grenadine.” He poured more than two measures of vodka into his glass. “It's romantic, makes me think of the sea. Of course”— he set down the bottle—“I leave out the grenadine. Actually, I leave out the ginger, too. Sure you won't join me? Ned? Lucinda?”

“No, thanks,” said Edward Winslow. “I see you switched from brandy.”

David Marr sank down on one of a pair of Queen Anne sofas, sliding down on his spine. He was a handsome man, and he looked like his nephew despite the difference in coloring. Edward was fair; he was dark, eyes glitter-black, chips of the night sky, intense. Too intense to make the drunken-playboy manner believable, the slouching position on the sofa anything but self-conscious.

As he measured out his drink with a frown of concentration, David said, “Lucinda says you're staying at the Mortal Man. And here you are, alive to tell about it.” He put down the bottle, turned, and smiled at Melrose.

“Here I am, yes. Aren't people always swearing out complaints or suing them, or something? So far I've had three narrow escapes — my carpet very nearly caught fire, my suitcase fell on me, and my breakfast landed in my lap. The place is a minefield. But the Warboyses take it all in stride and soldier on.”

“No one's sued them yet that we know of,” said Lucinda. “But I don't think they get many overnight guests. How about that coffee, then?”

“Yes, I'd love some coffee. As for the guests: you might have seen them go in; but did you see them come out?”

David laughed, then asked Edward, “Where the devil are the servants?”

“Bunburying,” said Ned Winslow, smiling.

“What, again?”

“What's bunburying?” asked Lucinda.

“Bunbury was Algie's mythical old friend; don't you remember? Anytime he wanted to leave London, he'd say old Bunbury was ill. Well, I shouldn't complain, I suppose I'm doing it myself. Anything to get out of London. I expect Lucinda's told you about what happened.” He looked at Melrose, got up again, and headed for the vodka. “I'm glad to help police with their inquiries—” He smiled. “—but it's getting tiresome. If not actually dangerous.”

“There's not a bit of evidence, David,” said Lucinda. “They haven't found anything yet.”

David stopped the brandy decanter in midair and said to her, “I like that ‘yet.' It's not particularly reassuring to think tomorrow they'll find my fingerprints smeared all over Hays Mews.”

“They won't,” said Ned shortly, as he went to poke up the fireplace. He turned and rested his arm along the green marble, much in the manner in which he was posed in the portrait above. It was a portrait of the three of them — the woman there looked enough like David Marr to be his twin. Melrose could not put his finger on what was so compelling about the painting: it was perhaps what it said of the relationship between the three. Melrose wondered where the husband was. Perhaps St. Clair was right. “They won't because you had nothing to do with it,” said Ned.

“If only the
police
would see it that way.”

“They will.”

David rolled his head, resting against the back of the sofa, back and forth, sighing. “Well, not to worry. It's just a damned nuisance being told not to leave the country. Why does one always want to leave the country when one is told
not to? Why does one always have the urge to visit Monte Carlo or the Himalayas when someone insists one stay at home? Why—?”

“The Himalayas might do you good. The last time you were in Monte, Mother had to send money.”

There was great good humor in Ned Winslow's tone. Melrose had the impression they all indulged one another's weaknesses.

David shrugged. “Maybe I shall do a Bunbury. Incidentally, Marion is having a lie-down; she's not feeling well. I hope it's not because of me. Where's the coffee, Lucinda?”

Lucinda went as she was bid, Edward to help her. Melrose wondered how she could think she had a chance with this man, who watched her departing back without a flicker of interest. It was too bad; Edward and Lucinda seemed a suitable couple, though he wondered why “suitability” had anything to do with it; love was not a well-cut suit of clothes.

“Lucinda says you're quite an authority on the French Romantics.” He smiled. “About which I know sod-all. But did you know Edward is a poet.” David rose with his glass; this time, however, he headed for the bookshelves rather than the commode. He drew out the volume Melrose recognized as Edward Winslow's. “You should read it.”

“I have; Lucinda gave me the copy intended, I fear, for Pearl St. Clair.”

David laughed. “I'm sure Pearl didn't mind; that relieves her temporarily of having to pretend she can read.” He leafed through the book, and said, “It's so simple, Ned's poetry. I guess I mean old-fashioned or something. “ ‘
Where have you gone to, Elizabeth Vere—?
' ” David snapped the book shut, replaced it, moved to the lacquer commode. “Ned isn't very happy. He should get married again.”

“I'm a little surprised you'd think
that
an antidote for happiness.” Melrose smiled. “In their refusal to gossip, the St.
Clairs did manage to let slip that your nephew was once married . . . to a woman who was, well —”

“Not terribly reliable. No, Rose was not reliable at all.” His smile this time was decidedly chilly, a crack in ice. “He's very deep, Ned. Not at all like me. I'm about this deep.” He held up the bottle with the remaining measure of vodka.

“Oh, I'd say you're a great deal alike.” Melrose looked up at the portrait above the marble mantel. “The artist who painted that seems to think so, too.”

“Paul Swann. Well, he's known us for a long time, but I don't see that in the painting, really.”

“He's a friend of yours?”

“Yes; he lives near me in Shepherd Market. Paul was in the Running Footman that night. Only he'd left, I think. If my memory of events weren't so clouded by this” — he held up the glass — “it would be easier. Fortunately, there's that telephone call to my sister.”

Fortunately, thought Melrose.

•  •  •

After coffee, they stood in the entry hall, a vast expanse of walnut paneling and sweeping staircase. Ned Winslow was to return Melrose to the Mortal Man; Lucinda was to stay behind to keep David company. The only company that David seemed interested in was the fresh bottle of vodka he'd found.

It was down that staircase that the woman in the portrait came. She was tall and dark like her brother, her hair a shimmery mahogany, swept up on her head in a carelessly done knot, dressed in a velvet morning robe of deep sable brown.

If this was poor Marion, there was something to be said for the ennobling effects of misfortune.

•  •  •

Inclining her head toward Melrose, she apologized for not coming down earlier. “I have a fierce headache, Mr. Plant. I hope you'll pardon me.” That she remained standing on the
stairs testified to her intention of going up them again as quickly as possible. Still, she struck Melrose more as a withdrawn, distant woman than a cold one. And very well bred. After all, she hadn't needed to come down at all; she could merely have conveyed her regrets, or indeed said nothing. He thought she gave Lucinda a chilly look, probably for having gotten her son to invite this stranger here in the first place.

Melrose wished she would stay; he would have liked to get more of an impression of her, which was why she was leaving, probably. In the circumstances, he supposed she thought the briefer the acquaintance, the better.

“Good Lord, Marion,” said David, “why do you give that layabout couple leave to go when you're not feeling well?”

She smiled, but the smile did little toward warming the high, cold brow. “Too tired to pour your own brandy, David?” There was no real recrimination in the tone. “Don't worry, they said they'd be back today or tomorrow.”

“I don't think you should be here alone and fending for yourself, that's all.”

“Well, now I have you to fend for me.” The humor in her voice was mixed with concern.

The expression on David Marr's face was strange, looking up the staircase. A strained, almost rapt expression, as if he were looking but not hearing.

Indeed, Melrose thought, all of them in this moment of silence and studied attention might have been grouped here, sitting for the portrait in the library.

A telephone rang in the distance, and Edward made a move toward a door across the wide hallway.

“Oh, hell!” said David. “That's the police, I'd bet my last drink on it.” As Edward disappeared through the door, David called, “Don't answer it, Ned, let the damned answering machine do it. That's what it's there —”

He must have realized what he'd said the moment the
words were out, for he broke off abruptly and polished off the rest of his drink.

There goes the alibi, thought Melrose.

•  •  •

“Is this the garden that Mr. St. Clair seems to feel is the happiest in Sussex?” asked Melrose. They had come to the end of a path that led through beeches to an informal garden at one side of which ran a long, serpentine wall overgrown with moss, covered in wisteria, and under the shelter of overhanging laburnum whose branches dripped rain.

Edward Winslow laughed. “Yes, this is it. It might be larger than his, but it's hardly impressive. Still, try to tell Sinjin that. If he owns it, it's dreadful. Modesty run amok. He's a nice man, though. Actually, I'm surprised that John manages to keep things in such good shape.” Ned waved to the gardener, who seemed to be hacking away at a monkey-puzzle vine in the distance. “Crusty old beggar thinks he's Gertrude Jekyll; still, he does a good job out here. You see the garden wall there?” Ned nodded toward the laburnum grove. “It's our family plot. Several great-aunts and my grandparents are buried there. And Phoebe.”

“That must have been pretty dreadful.”

Ned was silent for a moment, staring at the little graveyard. “We all loved Phoebe so much.”

“I'm sure. I've never had children.”

“Nor I. My wife didn't want any. Rose didn't much care for the country here. Actually, she didn't much care for me, I think, and the proximity to Mother. Mother can be, as you might guess, a formidable person. But she never interfered, never. It's just her presence. She can move us about, you know.”

There was no resentment in his tone. Melrose could well imagine Marion Winslow “moving them about.”

“One day I woke up,” continued Ned, “and she was gone. I don't know where; she had talked about the States, about Canada. But she didn't bother leaving a note. So I don't know where, do I?”

“Where have you gone to . . .?”
Melrose could not help but think of the poem.

Ned looked from the graves to the wall to the sky. “There was another man, I'm sure. Didn't even know she'd been seeing him. Didn't even know
him.
That's how blind a poet can be.”

“Or how blind a wife can be.” Ned Winslow gave him the impression of a man who'd accepted the past as nothing but a missed train on a wasted journey; he would stand on the platform or travel through life with his cases empty.

Melrose had been carrying the small book of poems in his pocket and drew it out. He thumbed through the pages until he came to the poem David had mentioned.

“It's very old-fashioned, as David says. Rhyme, meter, quatrains.”

“There is something to be said for what you call ‘old-fashioned.' Here it is.” Melrose read:

“Where have you gone to, Elizabeth Vere,

Far from the garden, the blossom, the bole?

Rain glazes the stream — ”