Henrietta Who Part 13

"What's that?"

"That she never got it here."

"Oh?"

"There's some that don't." She looked round the crowded little store, saleable goods protruding from every square inch of wall and ceiling s.p.a.ce, and lining most of the floor too. "They like where bigger."

Sloan saw what she meant. The sales point of the billhook was practically making itself felt.

"Especially," said Mrs. Ricks in her infinite wisdom, "if it isn't as much as they'd like you to think. Sergeant, wasn't he?"

Sloan nodded.

Mrs. Ricks sniffed. "Sometimes they were. Sometimes they weren't."

Calleford Minster rose like an eminence grise above and behind the cl.u.s.tered shops at the end of Petergate. Mr. Arbi-can of Messrs. Waind, Arbican & Waind would be very happy to see Henrietta but her appointment with him was not until a quarter to three. Farmers as a race lunch early and Henrietta and Bill Thorpe had time to spare.

Henrietta turned towards the Minster. "It's lovely, isn't it?"

Bill Thorpe turned an eye on the towering stone. "It's more than lovely. Do you realise it could be useful to you?"

"To me?"

He nodded. "That chap in the photograph..."

"My father," responded Henrietta a little distantly.

"He was-what did you say?-a sergeant in the East Cal-les.h.i.+res?"

"That's right. What about it?"

"He was killed, wasn't he?"

She flushed. "So I understand."

"Well, then..."

"Well then what?"

"Calleford's their town, isn't it?"

Henrietta sighed. "Whose town?"

"The East Calles.h.i.+res," explained Bill Thorpe patiently. "The Regiment. They've got their barracks here. Like the West Calles.h.i.+res have theirs in Berebury."

"What if they have?"

He pointed to the Minster. "If this is their home town then I think we might find their memorial in the Minster here, don't you?"

"I hadn't thought of that," she said slowly. "He-my father-'ll be there, won't he?"

Bill Thorpe led the way towards the Minster gate. "We can soon see."

The East Calles.h.i.+res did have their memorial in the Minster. Henrietta followed Bill Thorpe into the Minster and down the nave. She lagged behind slightly as if she did not want to be there, glancing occasionally at the memorials to eighteenth-century n.o.blemen and nineteenth-century soldiers.

An elderly verger led them to the East Calles.h.i.+re memorial on the North wall of the North transept.

"It catches the afternoon light just here, you know," he said. "Nice piece of marble, isn't it?"

"Very," said Bill Thorpe politely.

"They couldn't get no more like it," the man said. "Not when they came to try. Still, they weren't to know they were going to need a whole lot more less than twenty years later, were they?"

Bill Thorpe nodded in agreement. "Indeed not. That knowledge was spared them."

"So that," went on the man, "come 1945 they decided they would put those new names on these pillars that were there already. Quite a saving, really, though the money didn't matter, as it happened." He signed. "Funny how often it works out like that, isn't it?"

"Very," said Bill Thorpe.

"The same crest did, too." It was obvious that the man spent his days showing people around the Minster. His voice had a sort of hushed monotone suitable to the surroundings. "That's a nice bit of work, though they tell me it's tricky to dust. They don't think of that sort of thing when they design a monument."

"I suppose not."

The verger hitched his gown over his shoulders. "You two come to look somebody up?"

"Yes," said Bill. "Yes, we have."

"Thought so. People never ask unless they particularly want to see someone they was related to." He looked them up and down and said tersely, "First lot or second?"

"Second."

He sucked his breath in through gaps in his teeth. "It'll be easier to find them."

" 'An epitaph on an army of mercenaries' " said Bill Thorpe sadly as the old man wandered off.

Henrietta wasn't listening.

"Bill," she tugged his sleeve urgently. "Look."

"Where?"

She pointed. "There..."

"It goes," agreed Bill Thorpe slowly, "from Inkpen, T. H. to Jennings, C. R."

"There's no one called Jenkins there at all," whispered Henrietta.

CHAPTER NINE.

Bill Thorpe s.h.i.+fted his weight from one foot to the other and considered the matter.

"He should have been here, shouldn't he?"

"He was in the East Calles.h.i.+res," insisted Henrietta. "My mother always said he... I was told he was but there's the photograph too."

"The man in the photograph was wearing their uniform."

"Exactly," said Henrietta.

"But that's all."

"All?"

"All you know for sure," said Thorpe flatly.

Henrietta turned a bewildered face back to the memorial. "Do you mean the man in the photograph wasn't killed?"

Bill ran his eye down the names. "He may have been killed and not called Jenkins."

"Or," retorted Henrietta astringently, "I suppose he may have been called Jenkins and not been killed."

"That is the most probable explanation," agreed Thorpe calmly.

"How-how am I going to find out?"

"Did you ever see your mother's pension book?"

"She didn't cash her pension at the Post Office," she said quickly. "She took it to the bank. She told me that. Then she used to cash a cheque."

"I see."

There was a long pause and then Henrietta said, "So that, whether or not he was my father, he wasn't killed in the war, was he?"

"Not if he was in the East Calles.h.i.+res and was also called Jenkins," agreed Bill Thorpe, pointing to the memorial. "Of course there is another possibility."

Henrietta sighed but said nothing.

"He might not have been killed on active service," went on Thorpe.

"You mean he might have died a natural death?"

"People do, you know," said Thorpe mildly. "Even in war."

She was silent for a moment. Then, "Nothing seems to make sense any more."

"Everything has an explanation."

"This must sound very silly," she said, choosing her words carefully, "but let me say what I know for certain. There is a photograph..."

"The photograph is a fact," acknowledged Bill Thorpe.

"Which you have seen."

"Then the photograph is doubly a fact," he murmured ironically.

"There is a photograph of a man in the uniform of this regiment in the drawing room at home, and..."

"And that," said Bill Thorpe, "is all you know for certain."

She stared at him. "A man who I thought was my father."

"Ah, that's different."

"Who I thought was called Jenkins."

"Who may or may not be called Jenkins."

"And who I thought was killed in the war."

Bill Thorpe pointed to the memorial again. "Don't you see that he might be called Jenkins or he might have been killed in the war-but not both. The facts are mutually exclusive- unless he changed regiments halfway through or something out of the ordinary like that."

"Or died a natural death," persisted the girl.

"Or a very unnatural one," retorted Thorpe.

Henrietta waited.

"Well," said Thorpe defensively, "if he'd been shot as a spy or a deserter or something like that..."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"...We're hardly likely to find his name here, are we?"Bill waved a hand which took in all the hallowed thirteenth-century stone about them.

"That means," decided Henrietta logically, "that you don't think the man in the photograph is..." she hesitated, "or was my father."

"There is something wrong with the medals..."

"There's something wrong with everything so far," rejoined Henrietta. "We're collecting quite a bit of negative evidence."

"Just as useful as the other sort," declared Thorpe.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said rather tartly. "At the mo-ment the only thing we seem to be absolutely sure about is that there is a photograph of a sergeant in the East Cal-les.h.i.+res which has been standing in Boundary Cottage ever since I can remember."