I Am the Only Running Footman Read Online Free

then?”
    â€œSorry, sir. We’ll be getting on immediately to whoever might have been with Ivy.” From his coat pocket he pulled the packet of lozenges. “You don’t want to let that cough go. Take these.”
    Whatever it was — amulet or anodyne — Trevor Childess took the packet gratefully.
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    â€œTerrible thing,” said Wiggins, slamming the door shut on the driver’s side. “And Ivy being the only one.” Wiggins always got on a first-name basis with the victims quickly. It was part of his charm.
    â€œYes. Only, I wonder. If there were five or six or ten, would it be much comfort? If you lose one, don’t you suppose it’s like losing them all?”
    The engine turned over, coughed asthmatically, and went dead. Wiggins tried again, mumbling. Death and weather had a way of knitting themselves together in his mind. “You’d think they’d give us something better than this ten-year-old Cortina,” he said darkly as he tried to nurse the engine and hit the heater into action.
    â€œWhat about Marr?”
    â€œDavid L. Ex-directory and I thought for a moment I was going to have to call headquarters to get the address. Bloodyoperator gave it to me finally.” The engine turned over and he pulled away from the curb. “It’s Mayfair, all right. I didn’t call him; didn’t think you’d want to alert him.”
    â€œGood. Where in Mayfair?”
    â€œShepherd Market.” He took his hands from the steering wheel and blew on them. “Not far from the Running Footman, is it?”
    â€œNo. Walking, how long?”
    Wiggins thought for a moment. “Ten minutes, maybe. But I don’t suppose he’d be walking in all this muck.”
    Despite the errand and the cold, Jury smiled. The new snow furred the rusted car parts and rimmed the garishly painted porches and woodwork, blanketed the shabbiness of the street ahead. It lay blue and untrammeled in the morning light. Undisturbed, it seemed to bond the houses and fences together.

4
    D AVID Marr fit his surroundings. He looked elegant and neglected. The knap of his dressing gown was as badly rubbed as the Axminster carpet, and the cord as frayed as the tasseled one that held back the Chinese silk curtain. The one on the robe hung at approximately the same angle as Marr’s head. At six A.M . he was probably in the grip of a whale of a hangover.
    Hangover or not, the man was handsome. Jury thought there was something vaguely familiar about the high cheekbones and dark hair, or perhaps it was the sort of face that might have belonged to some dissolute peer, one often served up by the seamier tabloids along with sex, drugs and girls.
    Right now David Marr was sprawled in a worn-leather wing chair. His first reaction to the murder of Ivy Childess had been bafflement more than grief. His second, third, and fourth, Jury had been unable to see, since a cold flannel completely covered Marr’s face, and had done during Jury’s questions so far. Probably he could have used one or the otherof Sergeant Wiggins’s remedies, but Jury had sent Wiggins to the Bayswater flat.
    â€œGo on, then.” The muffled voice came from under the cloth.
    â€œMr. Marr, do you think perhaps we can talk face-to-face? It would be a help.”
    Sighing, he said, “So you can see the subtle change of expression that will testify to my guilt?” His breath sucked in and puffed out the cloth that he now withdrew reluctantly. “It’s not that I drank so much, it’s that I stupidly drank the Dogbolter at the Ferret and Firkin. Bruce’s Brewery, my friend. I was doing a bit of a pub-crawl before I met Ivy.” He dropped the flannel on a small table, and took the last cigarette from a black enamel case. “I’m being an insensitive boor, right?”
    Jury smiled. “If you say so. You think I’m presuming you’re