[08] I Am the Only Running Footman by Martha Grimes

Author:Martha Grimes
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2014-02-06T20:00:00+00:00

15

THE house itself had no name. Through the twilit snow, Jury’s lights picked out only a small bronze plaque bearing the single word Winslow, set in a stone pillar at the end of the curving drive. For a few moments he sat in the car, smoking and looking through the small wood where fallen branches and rotting logs showed the groundskeeper — if there was one — was anywhere but in the grounds. He slammed the door of the Ford, sending a small landslide of snow from the bonnet of the car to the ground.

Jury pulled at the bell and looked up at the straight gray face of the house. He would not have chosen it as a sanctuary from London, although it was certainly quiet enough. “Desolate” would be a better word, he thought. Perhaps it was that, really, that added to its baronial splendor.

A rustic-looking man, his face fretted with the tiny lines of the excessive drinker, opened the door and stuck his head around it, scanning Jury’s person with suspicion that only increased when Jury showed him his warrant card and said he was here to see Mrs. Winslow.

The man opened the door farther and beckoned with his hand as if he were trying to pull the malingerer on the step inside. “Coom on in; I’ll tell ’em.” No proper butler, certainly; probably the absentee groundsman or gardener.

The hall was large and cold and added to the impression of baronial splendor, with the array of armaments on one wall, the niches on the other into which plaster busts of saints or gods had been set. A central staircase of highly polished mahogany climbed up to a galleried first floor. He walked to the newel post and looked up; the picture Plant had mentioned on the telephone showed a blond young woman and a little girl of perhaps seven or eight.

On each side of the front door, an arched window gave a narrow view of the woodland. Snow drifted slowly down, masking the black beeches and yews. They looked more like shadows of trees. It turned his mind toward the Bristol road, the wood in which Sheila Broome had been found. He frowned slightly; something bothered him, something he had heard about Sheila Broome, a tiny print left on his mind much like the dark and delicate tracks of the birds. A missal thrush landed and rocked a thin branch of the nearest beechwood; small clumps of snow sifted down.

“Sorry, Superintendent, for keeping you waiting.”

It was David Marr. Jury had not heard him coming and was momentarily disoriented from staring out at the hypnotic scene.

Marr smiled slightly. “We’ve met.”

“I know.” Jury also smiled. “I think I was a little mesmerized by your wood. I like the snow.”

Marr raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “You go out in it, do you?”

“Occasionally. I’m a little late because of the roads.”

They were walking toward a double door to the right of the hall. “Don’t apologize. We’re the ones who kept you waiting.

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