I Am the Only Running Footman Read Online Free Page A

guilty?” Jury lit up one of his own cigarettes.
    Marr looked at Jury with a grim smile. “Your questions suggest that you’ve ruled out the most obvious answer: that poor Ivy was set upon by some mugger.” He looked away, toward the window where the pre-dawn darkness was as black as the enamel on the lighter he fingered. “Was she raped?”
    â€œI don’t know yet.” Jury pictured the body, a pale blue heap in the middle of the wet street. “I don’t think so. Would you mind telling me what happened at the pub?”
    Marr scrubbed at his hair with the cloth, then studied the end of his cigarette with an indifference that Jury suspected was feigned.
    â€œWe had an argument. She was angry and refused to let me take her home to Bayswater.” He looked at Jury. “I don’t usually leave women standing in pub doorways.” He shrugged. “Ivy can be extremely stubborn. Doesn’t look it, really, all that soft blue look and gorgeous hair. Well, I don’treally care for confrontations with women. Not worth it.”
    â€œWhat was the argument about, Mr. Marr?”
    â€œMoney, marriage, you know. For some reason Ivy wanted to marry me, poor girl.”
    â€œI’d think one reason might be pretty obvious — you move in a much headier social circle, I imagine.”
    David Marr opened one eye. “How can you tell that?”
    The question was rather innocent. Jury smiled. “I’ve been to the Childess house.”
    â€œBayswater?”
    â€œMile End. The parents’ house. They were the ones who gave me your name.”
    He frowned. “She hardly ever spoke of them. Hadn’t much family feeling, had Ivy.”
    â€œBut you were engaged.”
    Marr paused, his eyes shielded by his hand, in lookout fashion, as if he were tracking the progress of the morning light at the window. “That what the parents told you?”
    â€œThat’s what the daughter told them.”
    The hand now pressed to his head, as if he were holding it on, Marr pushed himself out of the wing chair and moved toward a rosewood table. He held a bottle of Remy to his ear like a huge shell, shook it and put it down, frowning. Then he studied the remaining inch or two in a Glenfiddich bottle, looked over at Jury, and held it up by way of not very enthusiastic invitation.
    â€œToo early for me, thanks, or too late, depending how you look at it.”
    Marr poured the inch and a half into a tumbler. “I try not to look at it at all. If you’re going to swallow a frog, better not stare at it too long, as they say. My head is killing me.” He drank it down and retied the robe. “A boor I may be — desolute, depraved, whatever. But engaged I was not. Whether that particular bit of information is important to your investigations, I don’t know; you’ve only my word for it. Whatevershe told friends, family, co-workers, I didn’t mean to marry Ivy.” He fell into the chair again and relit his cigarette.
    â€œWhat was your relationship with her?”
    â€œUm. Intimate, or at least sexual. There’s probably a difference.”
    Jury was mildly surprised he’d make the distinction. Marr looked quite human with some of the cool hauteur missing from his voice and eyes. “Then the ‘engagement’ was a fiction invented by her?” Marr nodded. “Then she was simply trying to convince herself?”
    â€œTrying to convince me is more like it.” He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “On several occasions she definitely talked of marriage. Such as last night.”
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    â€œI didn’t answer. Have another fag on you, Superintendent?”
    Jury handed him the packet and leaned back. “Are you sure you did nothing to encourage her?”
    Marr eased himself down in the chair, crossed his long legs, and shook his head in wonder. “For heaven’s