Free I Am the Only Running Footman by Martha Grimes Page B

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    There was little to see in the dark beyond the saloon bar’s window, but Melrose thought it a safe place to stand, for if he suddenly toppled perhaps some passerby would see him and go for help. Fog drifted in threads round the street lamp, and lay like a canopy over the pavement, giving an oddly truncatedlook to the person wading through it, a tall man in a muffler and deerstalker. His face was long and sad and the pouches under the eyes reminded Melrose of Osmond. He shook Melrose’s hand and introduced himself unhappily as St. John St. Clair, Lucinda’s father. Perhaps it was having to trip over that name that made St. John St. Clair look so sad and grave.
    They walked across the road to the large old car and once in it, St. John St. Clair began as if no time were to be lost in filling in the gaps in Melrose’s store of knowledge about pickles. He was, apparently, a pickle baron, and was quite trenchant in his observations of the hopelessness of such a suzerainty. Not a good year for gherkins, seemed to be the top and bottom of it. He said this while grinding the very stuffing out of the gearbox of his ancient Morris.
    St. Clair slapped the gearshift with the heel of his hand and the car lurched forward and they darted away from the curb. A patch of ice spun them sideways and slapped Melrose against the dashboard. St. Clair nearly strangled the wheel getting the Morris back on course without missing a beat in his pickle-talk.
    Melrose sighed and mumbled and rubbed his shoulder. As he wondered if he’d leave Somers Abbas alive, he tried to be sympathetic. To have three unmarried daughters (so St. Clair had gravely informed him) all living under one’s roof and to have devoted one’s time and talents to pickles were perhaps not cheering thoughts for a winter’s night.

10
    B Y the time the Morris slid to a stop in front of the Steeples, had Melrose had any stock in Shrewsbury Pickles and Fine Relishes he would have called his broker immediately, so grim were St. John St. Clair’s prognostications for the fate of his company. Perhaps the dark months ahead (for so his host painted them) goaded him into several flirtations with danger on the roads: they had only just missed a collision with a wagon, an overhanging willow, and a stone wall; and now the car had shaken the snow from the privet hedge and nearly toppled an urnful of frozen stalks that sat at the edge of the broad steps.
    Definitely a Warboysian ride, he thought, as he swept a bit of boxwood from his coat and a twig from his shoe and followed St. John St. Clair up wide iced-over steps inviting death.
    Sybil St. Clair rose to greet him, hands outstretched and — given her dress — flags flying. The frock seemed to consist largely of loose ends and scarves that looked about to flutter off through the long drawing room. Melrose could see that it had been a very handsome room with rosewood panelingand an Adam ceiling. “Had been” because Sybil, who fancied herself a decorator, had refurbished it in the Art Deco style: there was entirely too much of blue glass and green marble. He remembered now that she had quite an extensive clientele eager for her services. He couldn’t truly imagine anyone with any taste going to Sybil, who managed to put together rooms that reminded him of old cinemas. Indeed, she herself put him in mind of an old cinema star, with her frock of scarves and winged hairdo totally wrong for her plump face.
    He could do nothing but take her two ringed hands in his own and accept their affectionate little squeeze as if he were an old and very dear friend. With her whispery sort of speech, Sybil St. Clair had a way of fashioning intimacy out of the briefest acquaintance.
    Fortunately the St. Clair daughters did not share their mother’s tendency to rush and gush, Lucinda being too well bred and shy, and the others too haughty and holy in turn. The middle