Henrietta Who Part 30

"Henrietta Mantriot."

"Mantriot." She tested out the sound, tentative as a bride with a new surname. "Henrietta Eleanor Leslie Mantriot."

"Your mother..." began Sloan.

"Yes?" There was a sudden constriction in her voice.

"We think she was called Eleanor Leslie. The spelling of Leslie ought to have given us a clue."

"I've often wondered," she remarked, "where those names came from."

"She's been dead a long time," volunteered Sloan.

This did not seem to disturb the girl. "I knew she must have been," she said, "otherwise Grace Jenkins wouldn't have..."

"No."

"And my father, Inspector?"

"Your father, miss, we think was a certain Captain Hugo Mantriot."

"Master Hugo!" she cried. "Shhhhhsh, miss. We must be very quiet now."

"I'm sorry," she said contritely. "I was always hearing about Master Hugo. I never dreamt that..."

"Now you know why, miss." Sloan heard Crosby's whisper before Henrietta did and he was on his feet and out in the hall in a flash.

"Someone coming down the Belling road, sir."

"Upstairs," commanded Sloan. "Quickly. You too, miss."

In the end he went up with her and stood at the landing window. Together they watched someone approach the cottage on foot, slide open the gate and disappear behind some bushes in the garden.

"He's not coming in," whispered Henrietta.

"Not yet," murmured Sloan. "Give him time. He's waiting to see if the coast's clear." He withdrew from the window and pa.s.sed the word down to Crosby and Hepple to be very quiet now.

It was quite still inside Boundary Cottage. The next move was a complete surprise to everyone. Constable Crosby's hoa.r.s.e whisper reached Sloan and Henon the front upstairs landing.

"There's someone else, sir."

"Where?"

"Coming down the Belling road."

The visitor did not pause in the garden. He came straight up to the front door.

"Inspector," said Henrietta. "Look! The man in the garden. He's following the other one in."

Sloan did not stay to reply. He moved back to the head of the stairs and waited there, watching the front door open.

"He's got a key," breathed Henrietta, hearing it being inserted into the lock.

"Shssshhhhh," cautioned Sloan. "Don't speak now."

The front door opened soundlessly and someone came in. Whoever it was moved forward and then turned to shut the door behind him.

Only it wouldn't shut.

And it wouldn't shut for a time-honoured reason. There was someone else's foot in it.

Someone pushed from the inside and someone else pushed from the outside. The outside pusher must have been the stronger of the two for in the end the door opened wide enough to admit him.

Henrietta recognised the silhouette dimly outlined against the night sky and framed by the doorway. She clutched the banister rail for support. No wonder he had got the door opened in spite of the other man. Bill Thorpe was the strongest man she knew.

Bill Thorpe was apparently not content with having got the door open. He now advanced upon the other man, flinging himself against him. There was a surprised grunt, followed by a m.u.f.fled oath. Then a different sound, the sudden ripping of cloth. In the darkness it sounded like a pistol shot.

It was enough for Detective Inspector Sloan.

He switched on the lights.

"The police!" cried a somewhat dishevelled Felix Arbican. "Thank G.o.d for that. I caught this young man breaking into..."

"Felix Forrest Arbican," said Sloan lawfully from half way up the stairs, "I arrest you for the murder of Cyril Edgar Jenkins and must warn you that anything you say may be..."

"Thank you," retorted the solicitor coldly, "I am aware of the formula."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

"I thought it would be the solicitor," said Superintendent Leeyes unfairly. "Bound to be when you came to think about it."

"Yes, sir." Sloan was sitting in the Superintendent's office the next morning, turning in his report.

"What put you on to him in the beginning, Sloan?"

"It was the very first time we saw him, sir. I asked him if he knew of a client called Mrs. G. E. Jenkins and he said no."

"And?"

"And in the same interview he referred to her as Grace Jenkins though neither Crosby nor I had mentioned her Christian name, so I reckoned he knew her all right."

Leeyes grunted. "Stroke of bad luck that Hibbs fellow keeping his letter all those years."

"Yes and no, sir. He'd written it a bit ambiguously at the time-it could indicate a settlement like he said if you cared to look at it that way, so it could have been said to have served his case as well." He paused. "I think he would know that an agent would file it, too. Besides..."

"Besides what?"

"It was a sort of insurance, sir. If we should get hold of it, it would bring him into the picture and keep him in touch in a rather privileged way, wouldn't it?"

Leeyes grunted again.

"That's why I told the girl about him early on," said Sloan temerariously.

"You did what?"

"Sort of hinted that he was her motherts solicitor and so..." Sloan waved a hand and left the sentence unfinished.

"Suppose," suggested Leeyes heavily, "we go back to the very beginning."

"The last war," said Sloan promptly. "A promising young officer in the East Calles.h.i.+res called Hugo Mantriot of Great Rooden Manor..."

"Where's that?"

"Just south of Calleford." Sloan resumed his narrative. "This Hugo Mantriot marries the only daughter of the late Bruce Leslie..."

"Who's he?"

"The s.h.i.+pping magnate."

"Money?"

"Lots."

Leeyes nodded, satisfied.

"They have a baby girl," went on Sloan.

"Henrietta?"

"Henrietta Eleanor Leslie Mantriot." Sloan paused. "When she's about six weeks old her father comes home on leave to Great Rooden and there's a terrible-er-incident."

"What?" bluntly.

"According to the reports at the time Captain Hugo Mantriot went completely out of his mind, shot his wife and then himself. The Coroner was very kind-said some soothing sentences about the man's mind being turned by his wartime experiences and so forth. The whole thing played down as much as possible, of course."

Leeyes grunted.

"Twenty-four people had been killed by a flying bomb in Calleford the same week-the police had more than enough to do-the Coroner hinted that the Mantriots were really casualties of war in very much the same way as the flying bomb victims..."

"Arbican kill them both?" suggested Leeyes briefly.

"I shouldn't wonder, sir, at all, though we're not likely to find out at this stage." Sloan turned over a new page in his notebook. "Mrs. Mantriot had made a new will when the baby was born. I've had someone turn it up for me in Somerset House this morning and read it out. She created a trust for the baby should anything happen to either parent..."

"She being at risk as much as he was in those days," put in Leeyes, who could remember them.

"Exactly, sir. Those were the days when things did happen to people, besides which her husband was on active service and there was a fair bit of money involved. So she created this trust with the trustees as..."

"Don't tell me," groaned Leeyes.

"That's right, sir. Waind, Arbican & Waind. After all, of course, it's only guesswork on my part..."

"Well?"

"I reckon Grace Jenkins was already in the employment of the Mantriots as the baby's nanny. She was a daughter of Jenkins at Holly Tree Farm in Rooden Parva which isn't all that far away..."

"So?"

"I think Arbican suggested to her that she look after the baby. Probably put it into her mind that the infant shouldn't be told about the murder and suicide of her parents-that would seem a pretty disgraceful thing to a simple country girl like her."

Leeyes grunted.

"From there," said Sloan, "it's a fairly easy step to getting her to pa.s.s the baby off as her own until the child was twenty-one. All done with the highest motives, of course."

"Of course," agreed Leeyes. "And he keeps them both, I suppose?"

"That's right. Sets Grace Jenkins up in a remote cottage, maintains the household at a distance and not very generously at that..."

"Verisimilitude," said Leeyes.

"Pardon, sir?"

"You wouldn't expect a widow and child to have a lot of money."

"No, sir, of course not. Grace Jenkins falls for it like a lamb. Takes along a photograph of her own brother to forestall questions, and Hugo Mantriot's medals, and puts her back into bringing up Master Hugo's baby as if it's her own."

"Then what?"

"Then nothing, sir, for nearly twenty-one years. During which time the Wainds in the firm die off, public memory dies down and Felix Arbican gets through a fair slice of what Bruce Leslie left his daughter."

"The day of reckoning," said Leeyes slowly, "would be Henrietta's twenty-first birthday."

"That's right. Grace Jenkins had no intention of carrying the pretence further than that. She was a loyal servant and an honest woman."

"So?"

"She had to go," said Sloan simply, "and before Henrietta came back from University."

"He just overlooked the one thing," said Sloan.

It was the afternoon now and Sloan and Crosby were sitting in the Rectory drawing room. In spite of all her protestations Henrietta had gone to the Rectory the previous night-or rather, in the early hours of the morning-after all. Bill Thorpe and P. C. Hepple had escorted her there to make-as Sloan said at the time-a.s.surance doubly sure. Once there Mrs. Meyton had taken it upon herself to protect her from all comers and she had been allowed to sleep on through the morning.

Now they were all foregathered in the Rectory again-bar the main consultant, so to speak. The case was nearly over, the Rectory china looked suitably unfragile and Mrs. Meyton's teapot as if it contained tea of a properly dark brown hue-so Sloan had consented to a cup.