Henrietta Who? (12 page)

“No, sir.” He coughed. “This case has several unusual features.”

“You can say that again,” said his superior encouragingly. “Found out whose the medals were?”

“Not yet, sir. The old boy at the rectory's quite right. Knows his stuff. They're the wrong ones for the photograph quite apart from the fact that the D.S.O. and M.C. are never awarded to sergeants.”

“Officers, medals, for the use of.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This man Hibbs at The Hall. He an officer type?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hrrrmph.”

“I've had a look at his car,” said Sloan hastily. “It looks all right to me. It's not all that new and I don't know how much damage to expect to the car from her injuries. I'll have a word with Traffic about that. And Dr. Dabbe.”

“And check,” growled Leeyes, “that he hasn't had them repaired. Plenty of time for that since Tuesday.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was he doing on Tuesday evening anyway?”

“Nothing,” said Sloan cautiously.

“Nothing?”

“He was alone at home.”

“Was he indeed? Interesting.”

“You see, sir, it was the first Tuesday in the month.”

“I am aware of that, Sloan, but the significance eludes me.”

“That's Institoot—I mean, Institute night.”

“You don't say.”

“Mrs. Hibbs,” said Sloan hurriedly, “is Branch President. So she was out.”

“No servants?”

“A daily. A real one.”

“A real one?”

“Comes every day. Daily.”

“There's no need to spell it out for me, man.”

“No, sir.”

“What you are trying to tell me—and taking the devil of a long time about it, if I may say so—is that James Heber Hibbs was alone all evening at The Hall, he has a car whose tire marks correspond with those found at the scene of the accident and you aren't yet sure if he killed Grace Whatever-her-name is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“There may well be something odd about this chap Jenkins, sir, apart from the medals.”

“You can say that again,” responded Leeyes generously.

“I've been making a few enquiries about his pension.”

“Oh?”

“And I can't trace it. It wasn't paid out via the local village post office which is not all that surprising, but it didn't go into her bank account either. I've just seen the manager. No pension voucher record there. Her account was kept going with a small regular monthly cash payment over the counter.”

“Who by?” sharply.

“Grace Jenkins herself to all intent and purposes,” sighed Sloan. “According to the paying-in slips, she always handed it over herself.”

“Maintenance,” concluded Leeyes.

“Yes, sir, with any clue to its source carefully concealed.”

“And anything not concealed equally carefully removed from the bureau on Tuesday.”

“Just so,” agreed Sloan.

“From what you've said so far,” said the superintendent, “she doesn't strike one as having been a kept woman.”

“Only literally, sir, if you follow me. I think it was the child who was kept. I've got in touch with the pension authorities and they're doing a bit of checking up now but it'll take time. It's not as if it were an uncommon name even.”

“No.” The superintendent thought for a moment and then said, “The most interesting question from our point of view is: Who was keeping both of them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And why.” The superintendent sat silent, thinking. Sloan knew better than to interrupt his thoughts. “If,” said Leeyes at last, “we knew why they were being kept I daresay we'd know who killed the woman.”

“Whatever the story,” said Sloan, “I think we can be fairly sure the situation changed when the girl reached twenty-one.”

“And someone didn't like it the new way.”

“No.”

“That means there's money somewhere, Sloan, or I'm a Dutchman.”

“Perhaps.” Sloan tapped his notebook. “It could be a question of inheritance, easily.”

“Or concealment of birth.”

“I'd thought of that, sir. I've been on to the General Register Office with the only reasonable thing I could think of to ask them.”

“What was that?”

“A list of the female children born about the same time as Henrietta Jenkins says she was and who have the same Christian names.”

“That's a tall order,” said the superintendent.

“They said it would take time,” agreed Sloan dubiously. “I don't suppose a Friday afternoon's the best moment to ask them either.”

“No.” Leeyes looked at his watch. “Late on Friday afternoon at that.”

“She was called Henrietta Eleanor Leslie though.”

“That's better than Mary, I suppose.”

“But you don't have to register a birth for six weeks and …”

“And,” said the superintendent grimly, “we've only got her word for it that those are her names and that that is when she was born.”

“Just so,” said Sloan.

That was the moment when the telephone began to ring.

Leeyes picked it up, listened for a moment and then handed it over to Sloan. “A call for Inspector Sloan from Calleford. Urgent and personal.”

Sloan took the receiver in one hand and a pencil in the other. “Speaking …”

He listened attentively, then he asked two questions in quick succession, advised the speaker to go home, and replaced the receiver.

“That was Bill Thorpe, sir.”

Leeyes nodded. “That's the chap who helped find the body, isn't it? The one the girl wanted to marry.”

“Him,” said Sloan. “He's with the girl in Calleford now and she's just seen Cyril Jenkins.”

“Who?” roared Leeyes.

“Cyril Jenkins.”

“He's dead.”

“Not if she's just seen him,” said Sloan reasonably.

“How does she know it's him?”

“Living image of the man in the photograph but older.”

“She's imagining it then.”

“She swears not.”

“Wishful thinking.”

“A dead likeness,” said Sloan pithily. “That's what Thorpe said.”

“Did he see him himself?”

“No. Not his face. Just his back.”

“I don't like it, Sloan.”

“No, sir.” He waited. “There's something else.”

Leeyes' head came up with a jerk. “What?”

“They've been in the Minster looking at the East Calleshire Memorial there.”

“Well?”

“Jenkins's name isn't on it and he was supposed to have been killed in the war.”

“Well, if he's alive and kicking in Calleford this afternoon that's hardly surprising, is it? Be logical, Sloan.”

“Yes, sir.” You couldn't win. Not with Superintendent Leeyes.

“And I suppose they let him get away.”

“They were in a tea shop, sir. By the time they got out he'd disappeared.”

“So we don't know if the girl was right or wrong?”

“Strictly speaking, no.”

“And we don't know either, Sloan, if she is having us all on, the Thorpe boy included.”

“No, sir.”

“If she is, do you realize that nearly all the evidence we've got—if you can call it evidence—comes from her?”

“Yes, sir. Apart from Dr. Dabbe, that is.”

“It's a lonely furrow,” agreed Leeyes sardonically, “that the doctor's ploughing. What did you tell them to do?”

“Go home to Larking,” said Sloan. “As the crow flies they're nearer there than they are to Berebury. I'll go down to Larking to see them later.”

Leeyes grunted.

“And,” continued Sloan, “I'll get some copies of Jenkins's photograph blown up and rushed over to Calleford. No harm in looking for him.”

“No harm in finding him,” retorted Leeyes meaningfully. “It'll be interesting to see if they can pick him up over there. I understand that they can do almost anything at headquarters.”

“Yes, sir.” The superintendent pursued his own private vendetta with County Constabulary Headquarters at Calleford.

“Of course,” blandly, “he may not be called Jenkins.”

“No,” agreed Sloan dutifully.

“And that won't make it any easier for them.”

He did not sound particularly sorry about this.

Sloan went into Traffic Division on his way back from seeing the superintendent. A lugubrious man called Harpe was in charge. He had a reputation for having never been known to smile, which reputation he hotly defended on the grounds that there had never been anything to smile about in Traffic Division. He was accordingly known as Happy Harry.

So it was now.

“Nothing's turned up, Sloan,” he said unsmiling. “Not a thing. No witnesses. No damaged cars. Nobody reported knocking a woman down.”

“Where do you usually go from here?”

“Inquest. Newspaper publicity. Radio appeal for eyewitnesses to come forward.”

“Any response as a rule?”

“It all depends,” said Harpe cautiously. “Usually someone comes forward. Not always.”

“They won't this time,” prophesied Sloan. Harpe's pessimism was infectious.

“Don't suppose they will. Lonely road. Unclassified, isn't it? Nobody about. Dark. Pubs open. Shops shut.”

“Institute night.”

“What's that?”

“Nothing.”

“Our chaps have been in all the local repair garages—no one's brought in anything suspicious, but then if they were bent on not coming forward they'd go as far afield as they conveniently could.”

“Or not repair at all.”

Harpe looked up. “How do you mean?”

“If this was murder,” said Sloan, “they'd be dead keen on not getting caught.”

“I'll say.”

“Well, I don't think they'd risk having telltale repairs done in Calleshire.”

“They might sell,” said Harpe doubtfully. “We could get County Hall to tell us about ownership changes if you like.”

“I wasn't thinking of that, though it's a thought. No, if I'd done a murder with a motor car and got some damage to the front … how much damage would it be, by the way?”

Harpe shifted in his chair. “Difficult to say. Varies a lot. Almost none sometimes. Another time it can chew up the front quite a lot. Especially if the windscreen goes.”

“It didn't,” said Sloan. “There was no glass on the road at all. We looked.”

“That means his headlamps were all right then, too, doesn't it?”

Sloan nodded.

“Of course,” went on Harpe, with the expert's cold-blooded logic, “if you're engineering your pedestrian stroke vehicle type of accident on purpose …”

“I think we were.”

Harpe shrugged. “If you can afford to wait until you can see the whites of their eyes, then naturally you pick your spot.”

“How do you mean?”

“You hit them full on.”

“Amidships, so to speak?”

“Between the headlamps,” said Harpe seriously. “You wouldn't break any glass then.”

“I see,” said Sloan.

“Of course, your ‘exchange principle' still applies.”

“What's that?”

“Car traces on the pedestrian. Pedestrian traces on the car. Paint, mostly, in the first case.”

“Dr. Dabbe didn't say and he never misses anything.”

“Blood stains on the car,” went on Harpe cheerlessly, “and hair and fibers of clothing—only you haven't got the car, have you?”

“No,” said Sloan. “Then, to go back to concealing the damage …”

“If you didn't want to take it anywhere to repair …”

“I know what I'd do.”

Harpe looked at him uncompromisingly. “Well, and what would you do?”

“Bash it into a brick wall,” said Sloan cheerfully. “Or arrange another accident that would destroy all traces of the first. That would make him safe enough if they did find the car.”

Even then Harpe did not smile.

It was about a quarter to six when Henrietta and Bill Thorpe got back to Boundary Cottage, Larking.

Henrietta went straight through into the front room and halted in her tracks. Bill nearly bumped into her.

“Oh, I'd forgotten,” she said.

“What?”

“The police inspector took the photograph away with him.”

“Why?”

“The medals,” said Henrietta vaguely. “He was going to talk to the rector about them.”

“There's a fair bit of talking needing doing,” said Bill, settling himself in a chair. “Am I glad you're going to be twenty-one next month!”

“Why?” She hardly bothered to turn her head.

“Because if we've got to find this character Jenkins and ask his permission for you to marry me we're in real trouble.”

“He's not my father,” said Henrietta. “My father's dead.”

“How do you know?”

“I don't,” she agreed miserably. “I don't know anything. I don't even know what I know and what I don't know.”

Bill Thorpe nodded comprehendingly. “I follow you—though thousands wouldn't. All the same, I'm glad that we'll be able to get to the altar without him. Shouldn't know where to begin to look.”

“It was him,” she said in the tone of one who has said the same thing many times before. “I'd know him anywhere again. I knew that photograph like the back of my hand.”

“So you said before.”

“He was older, that's all.”

“Twenty years older?”

“About.” She sat down too. “Men don't change all that much.”

“Sorry to hear you say that.” Bill Thorpe grinned and ran a hand over his face. “There's room for improvement here. Or do you like me as I am?”

She made a gesture with her hand. “I can't like you, Bill—I can't like anyone at the moment. Not until I know who I am. Oh, I can't put it into words but there just isn't any of me left over for things like that. Besides, you must know who it is you're marrying.”