Henrietta Who Part 15

"None," Henrietta said despondently. "He doesn't rememher at all."

"What about the legal side?" He fell in step beside her. "I've found a tea shop down this lane."

"The legal side!" echoed Henrietta indignantly. "I'd no idea adoption was so easy. And there's no central register of adoption either." There was quite a catch in her voice as she said, "I could be anybody."

"We'll have to get the vet to you after all. Turn left at this corner."

Her face lightened momentarily. "Strangles or spavin?"

"To look at your back teeth," said Bill Thorpe. He pushed open the door of the tea shop and led the way to the table. They were early and the place was not full. He chose the one in the window and they settled into chairs facing each other.

Henrietta was not to be diverted. "I am a person..."

"Undoubtedly. If I may say so, quite one of the..."

"You may not," she said repressively.

"Tea, I think, for two," he said to the waitress. "And toast."

"When I was a little girl," said Henrietta, "I used to ask myself, 'Why am I me?' Now I'm grown up I seem to be asking myself, 'Who am I?' "

"Philosophy is so egocentric," complained Bill Thorpe, "and everyone thinks it isn't. I'm not at all sure I like the idea of your studying it."

"I'm me," declared Henrietta.

"And very nice, too, especially your..."

"I know I'm me, but where do we go from here?"

Bill Thorpe stirred. "Your existence isn't in doubt, you know. Only your ident.i.ty."

"Then who on earth am I?"

"I don't know," he said placidly, "and I don't really care."

Henrietta did. "At this rate I could be anybody at all."

"Not just anybody."

"There are over fifty million people in this country and if I'm not called..."

"We can narrow the field a bit."

"You're sure?"

"Unless I'm very much mistaken," he underlined the words, "you're female. That brings it down to twenty-five million for a start."

"Bill, be serious. This is important."

"Not to me, it isn't. But if you insist..."

"I do."

"Then you're a leucodermii." He grinned. "That's silenced you. I did anthropology for a year. Enjoyed it, too."

She smiled for the first time that day. It altered her appearance beyond measure. "Science succeeding where philosophy has failed, Bill?"

"Well you're the one who wants to find out who you are. Not me."

She lowered her eyes meekly. "And you tell me I'm a leucodermii."

He waved a hand. "So you are. If I said, 'Come hither, my dusky maiden,' you needn't come."

That startled her. "I'm English."

It was his turn for irony. "White, through and through?"

She flushed. "Not that, but surely... I never thought I could be anything but English. Oh, I am. Bill, I must be."

"Indo-European anyway." He moved his chair back while the waitress set the tea in front of them. "Thank you." While Henrietta poured out, he squinted speculatively at her. "Your head's all right."

"Thank you."

"Mesocephalic. Not long, not broad, but medium."

"That sounds English if anything does."

"The lady mocks me." He held up a hand and ticked off the fingers one by one. "You're not Slav, nor Mongol..."

"Thank you."

"... Nor Mediterranean type. If your cheek bones had been a fraction higher, you could have been Scandinavian..."

"I feel English."

"Nurture, not nature."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"Unless you believe in all this inherited race consciousness theory."

She shook her head. "I don't know enough about it."

"n.o.body does. Have some toast. Then I think all we can conclude is that you are free, white and nearly twenty-one."

"Free?" echoed Henrietta.

"Remarkably so. No attachments whatsoever. Except to me, of course."

She wouldn't be drawn but sat with her head turned away towards the window, staring at the street.

" 'Free as nature first made man,' " quoted Bill.

"You'll be talking of n.o.ble savages in a minute, I suppose."

"Never!"

"Tell me this," she said. "Do vets still go in for branding?"

"Sometimes," he said cautiously. "Why?"

"Because a few marks on my ear at birth would have saved a lot of trouble all round, that's why."

"You'd better have another cup of tea," he said. "And some more toast."

She refilled her cup and his, and sat gazing through the teashop window at the pa.s.sers-by.

Suddenly she let her cup fall back into her saucer with an uncontrolled clatter. "Bill, look. Out there."

"Where?"

"That man." She started to struggle to her feet, her face quite white.

"What about him?"

She was pointing agitatedly towards the back of a man walking down the street. "It... it's the man in the photograph... Oh, quickly. I'm sure it is."

"You mean your father?" He pushed his chair back.

"Cyril Jenkins," she said urgently. "I swear it is. It was exactly like the man in the photograph but older." She started to push her way out of the tea shop. "Come on, Bill, quickly. We must catch him whatever happens."

CHAPTER TEN.

It was well after four o'clock before Inspector Sloan and Constable Crosby met again. Crosby went into Sloan's room at the Berebury Police Station waving a list.

"Nearly as long as my arm, sir, this."

"It can't be as long as your face, Crosby. What is it?"

"The Holly Tree Farms in Calleshire."

"Routine is the foundation of all police work, Constable. You should know that."

"Yes, sir. Records have come through on the phone, too, sir. They've got nothing against any Cyril Edgar Jenkins or Grace Edith Wright."

"Or Jenkins."

"Or Jenkins."

"That doesn't get us very far then."

"No, sir." Crosby still sounded gloomy. "And I can't get anywhere either with this family that the girl says her mother used to work for."

"Hocklington-Garwell?" Inspector Sloan frowned. "I was afraid of that They may not have lived in Calleshire, of course..."

"No, sir. I'd thought of that" Crosby looked as if he might have to take on the world.

"And there is always the possibility that the girl may be having us on."

"You mean they might not exist?" If Crosby's expression was anything to go by, this was not quite cricket.

"I do."

Crosby looked gloomier still. "It's a funny name to be havus on with, sir, if you know what I mean."

"That, Constable, is the most sensible remark you've made for a long time."

"Thank you, sir."

"Therefore I am inclined to think that the Hocklington-Garwells do exist."

"Not in Calieshire, sir," said Crosby firmly. "Several Gar-wells but no Hocklingtons and not a sniff of a Hocklington-Garwell."

"Give me the Garwells's addresses then," said Sloan. "We've got to start somewhere and we're getting nowhere fast at the moment."

"It would have been a lot simpler," said Crosby plaintively, "if she had had the baby and we were looking for the father."

Superintendent Leeyes said much the same thing in different words a few minutes later in his office in the same corridor.

"I've dealt with a few paternity orders in my time, Sloan, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I've met a maternity one yet."

"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?"