Henrietta Who Part 3

CHAPTER THREE.

"Have you ever turned two pages of something, Sloan?"

The Superintendent of Police in Berebury glared across his desk at the Head of his Criminal Investigation Department. It was a very small Department, all matters of great moment being referred to the Calles.h.i.+re County Constabulary Headquarters in Calleford.

"No, sir. The girl positively identified the woman as her mother and Dr. Dabbe, the pathologist, says the woman had never had any children."

"How does he know?"Truculently.

"I couldn't begin to say,"said Sloan faintly. The Superintendent's first reaction was always the true English one of challenging the expert. he was quite definite about it."

"He always is."

"Yes, sir,"Sloan coughed. "There are really three matters..."

Superintendent Leeyes Grunted discouragingly.

"First of all a woman is knocked down and killed on Tuesday evening not far from her home."Sloan stopped and amended this. far from what we believe is her home. At some stage before or after this but not before Wednesday evening someone lets himself into her house with a key but doesn't have a key to the bureau so breaks it open..."

"Why?"

"I don't know yet sir. Thirdly..."

"Well?"

"Te woman isn't the mother of a girl who identified her as her mother."

"It's not difficult," said Leeyes softly. "She's probably the father's b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Sloan ignored this and said conversationally, "Mrs. Jenkins seems to have been a very unusual woman, sir."can say that again,"said the Superintendent. 've never heard of unnatural childbirth before."

"She managed"-Sloan was still struggling to keep the tone at an academic level-"she managed to keep her private affairs private in a small village like Larking."

"I'll admit that takes some doing. Did she have a record then?"

"I don't know, sir, yet, but that's not quite the same thing as a secret."

"No? Perhaps, Sloan, I've been in the Force too long..."

"I think this secret must have been of a matrimonial nature."

The Superintendent brightened at once. "Then perhaps it was Mr. Jenkins who had the record."

"I'll check on that naturally, sir, but there is another possibility."

"There are lots of possibilities."

"Yes, sir."

"Not all of them to do with us."

"No, sir. This could well be just a family matter."

"Most of our cases," the Superintendent reminded him tartly, doing one of his famous smart verbal about-turns, "are family matters."

"Yes, sir." He paused. "Constable Hepple doesn't know anything about them not being mother and daughter and he's been living out that way for donkey's years."

"A good man, Hepple," conceded Leeyes. "Knows all the gossip. If there's much crime in the south of Calles.h.i.+re he never tells us."

This might not have been Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary's view of what const.i.tuted a good policeman but the Superintendent was not a man who looked for work.

"What are you going to do about it?" he asked Sloan.

"See the girl for a start-and the bureau."

"She could be lying." Leeyes tapped Traffic Division's file. "According to Dr. Dabbe she is."

"Her mother could have lied to her..."

"A by-blow of the father's," repeated the Superintendent firmly, "for sure, brought up as her own. Some women will swallow anything."

"Perhaps," said Sloan cautiously. "But just suppose she isn't Grace Edith Jenkins?"

Superintendent Leeyes looked quite attentive at last. "I don't believe we've had a case of personation in the county for all of twenty years."

Young Thorpe had called at Boundary Cottage to see if Henrietta needed anything, and to say how sorry he was.

"It is nice of you, Bill," she said sincerely, "but I'm quite all right."

He stood awkwardly in the doorway, almost filling it with his square shoulders. He wasn't all that young either but being Mr. Thorpe of s.h.i.+re Oak Farm's son he was destined to be known as young Thorpe for many years yet.

"I liked your mother, you know," he said, "in spite of everything."

"I know you did, Bill," Henrietta said quickly.

"She was probably right to make us wait. First I was away at the Agricultural College and then with her being so keen on your going away too."

Henrietta nodded. "She really minded about that, didn't she?"

"Some people just feel that way about education," said Bill Thorpe seriously. "My father's the same. He couldn't go to college himself but he made me. He's right, I suppose. You learn-well, it's not exactly how much you learn but the reasons behind things."

"And it wasn't very long, was it?"

He smiled wanly. "It seemed a long time."

"You never wrote."

"Neither did you," returned Bill.

"We promised not to. I thought it might make things easier."

"Did it?"

Henrietta shook her head. "No."

"Nor for me." He looked at her for a minute, then, "Mother said to come to the farm to sleep if you wanted."

"Will you say thank you? There's nothing I'd like more but," she grimaced, "I think if I once didn't stay here on my own I'd never get back to doing it again. She'll understand, I know."

Thorpe nodded. "We're a bit out of the way, too, at the farm. There'll be a lot to be done here I expect."

"It's not that but," she pushed her hair back vaguely, "there seem to be people coming all the time. The Rector's coming down to talk to me about the funeral and Mr. Hepple said he'd be back again about the inquest." She gave a shaky half-laugh. "I'd no idea dying was such a-well-complicated business."

"No,"agreed Thorpe soberly. He allowed a decent interval to elapse before he said, "Any news of the car?"

"What car-oh, that car? No, Bill, they haven't said anything to me about it yet."

Henrietta thought that Inspector Sloan and Constable Crosby had come from the Berebury C.I.D. solely to examine her mother's bureau for fingerprints.

"It's in the front room," she said, leading the way. "I haven't touched it."

Sloan obligingly directed Crosby to perform this routine procedure while he talked to Henrietta.

"Nothing missing from the rest of the house, miss?"

"Not that I know of, Inspector. It all looks all right to me." She paused. "It's such an odd thing to happen, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Sloan simply.

"I mean, why should someone want to break in here..."

"Not break in, miss. P.C. Hepple said all the doors and windows were intact. He found the place quite well locked up really. Whoever got in here came in by the door. The front door."

("The back one's bolted as well as the Tower of London,"was what Hepple had said.) "The front door," he repeated.

"That's worse," said Henrietta.

"Your mother, miss, would she have left a key with anyone?"

"No." Henrietta considered this. "I'm sure she wouldn't. Besides there were only two keys. There was one in her handbag and one hanging on a hook in the kitchen. That's the one I use when I'm at home."

"I see."

Henrietta s.h.i.+vered suddenly. "I don't like to think of someone coming in here..."

"No, miss."

"... with a key."

Sloan wasn't exactly enamoured of the idea either. It left the girl in the state the insurance companies called being "at risk."

"Now, miss, I think we can open the bureau."

Crosby had finished his dusting operations. He stood back and said briefly, "Gloves."

Sloan was not surprised.

"Was it usually kept locked?" he asked Henrietta.

"Always."

"Are you familiar with its contents?"

"Not really. My mother kept her papers there. I couldn't say if they are all there or not."

Sloan eased back the flap. Everything was neatly pigeonholed. Either no one had been through the bureau or they had done it conscious that they would be undisturbed. Sloan pulled out the first bundle of papers.

"Housekeeping accounts," he said, glancing rapidly through them. Grace Jenkins and her alleged daughter had lived modestly enough.

"That's right," said Henrietta. "You'll find her cheque book there too."

Sloan took a quick look at the Bank's name for future reference. It was at a Berebury Branch. He put the tidily docketed receipts back and took out the next bundle. It brought an immediate flush to Henrietta's cheeks.

"I'd no idea she kept those."

Sloan looked down at a schoolgirl's writing.

"My letters to her," she said in a choked voice, "and my school reports."

If this was acting, thought Sloan, it was good acting.

"Mothers do." He chose his words carefully. "Part of the treasury of parenthood, you might say. By the way, where did you go to school?"

"Here in the village first, then Berebury High."

Sloan put the infant Henrietta's literary efforts back in their place and took out the next bundle.

"These seem to be about the cottage." He turned over a number of letters. "Fire insurance, rating a.s.sessment and so forth."

Sloan put them back but not before noting that all were quite definitely in the name of Mrs. G. E. Jenkins.

"Boundary Cottage," he said. "Did it belong to your mo- to Mrs. Jenkins?"