I Am the Only Running Footman by Martha Grimes Page B

ride.”
    â€œIf you’re not in a hurry, it’s a swell way. Removes both of you from home ground.”
    â€œBut the scarf; that doesn’t sound premeditated, Macalvie. He just used the available means.”
    Macalvie got up and collected their glasses. “Oh, I imagine he had something else, a stocking, a gun.” He went off to fill the glasses and, while he was waiting, to play the jukebox.
    The Running Footman wasn’t crowded; a few couples, a half-dozen singles that looked pleasant and not hurting for money. Jury supposed you weren’t if you lived in Mayfair.
    Macalvie walked back to the table, where they sat for a moment drinking and listening to the honey-voice of Elvis Presley. Elvis was Macalvie’s favorite.
    â€œLike I said, she wasn’t robbed. She was carrying about seventy quid in a rucksack, another ten or eleven in her jacket. There was a gold watch, strap broken, in the pack and a couple of rings on her fingers.”
    â€œWhat about cars, drivers? Did you find anyone?”
    â€œThere was a lorry driver. I wouldn’t have found him except for a waitress in a Little Chef who thought she remembered Sheila Broome’s face, not so much because of the face itself, but because she was wearing a vest the waitress fancied and asked her where she got it. Electric blue, it was. And she remembered the artic because it was so big it took up nearly half the car park. Lucky for the driver that the waitress watched when they left; she said he must have started off with Sheila, but when Mary-the-waitress looked out the window, Sheila was stepping down from the cab. She could hardly see through the fog; it was that neon-blue vest. Then Sheila was trying to hitch another ride in front of the petrol station next to the cafe.”
    â€œAnd she didn’t see anything else? No car stopping?”
    Macalvie shook his head. “Next time she looked, she didn’t see Sheila. Now, tell me about Ivy.”
    Jury told Macalvie the little they knew. Nodding his headin the direction of the side street, he said, “You’ve had a look, I suppose.”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œIt was two or three hours later that she was found.”
    â€œÂ â€˜Hours’? You ought to be on my forensics team.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œNo problem. Patience on a monument, Jury, that’s me. Go on.” Before his patience could be pressed into service, Macalvie turned to the table beside them and told the occupants to hold it down. They just stared.
    â€œPrincess and the pea is more like it. How many mattresses do you sleep on, Macalvie? The last her boyfriend saw of her she was standing in that doorway over there”— Jury nodded toward the entrance—“doing a slow burn.” Jury told him about the interview with David Marr.
    â€œCab-driver said she flagged him down and then changed her mind?”
    Jury nodded.
    â€œCab-drivers can’t see. All you have to do is grab a taxi to know that.”
    â€œLet’s assume this one could,” said Jury dryly. “It’s not much of an alibi, anyway.”
    â€œHow true. So this makes two.”
    â€œBut muggings happen every day, a murder here and a murder in Devon —”
    â€œCome on. We’ve just been over that. No rape, no robbery.”
    â€œThose are un knowns, Macalvie. The only known here is the way they were garroted.”
    â€œWhat more do you want? A bootprint on her forehead? It’s like I said.”
    Like he said, thought Jury. Case open. Theory closed.

PART II
Reverie

8
    S HE spent the morning and part of the afternoon in the shops, not buying, only looking, and after a while not seeing much of what she looked at. In an antiques shop in the Lanes, she picked up a miniature, one of several on a black walnut table, and opened the heart-painted top to read the legend inside: Love Always. Kate disliked these little, porcelain boxes that had no purpose