Henrietta Who Part 20

"No witnesses," went on Sloan hastily. "No cars taken in for suspicious repairs anywhere in the county..."

"I don't know what we have a Traffic Division for," grumbled Leeyes.

Sloan kept silent.

"What about Somerset House?"

"Still searching, sir."

Leeyes grunted again. "And the pensions people?"

"They've been on the phone. They say they're paying out a total disability pension to a Cyril Edgar Jenkins..."

"Oh?"

"Not him. This one was wounded on the Somme in July 1916."

"That's not a lot of help."

"No, sir." He coughed. "In view of the brief reappearance of Jenkins I've asked the War Office to turn up the Calleshire Regiment records. His discharge papers would be a help."

"So would his appearance," said Leeyes briskly. "Calleford haven't found him yet, I take it?"

"I rang them this morning," said Sloan obliquely. "They'd visited all the people called Jenkins in the city itself without finding anyone corresponding to either the photograph or the girl's description-but there's a big hinterland to Calleford. And it was their market day yesterday too. He might have come in to that-or to shop or to work."

"Or to see the Minister," suggested Leeyes sarcastically. "What I don't like about it is the coincidence."

"I suppose it is odd," conceded Sloan. "The one day the girl happens to go there she sees him."

"She says she sees him," snapped Leeyes.

"On the other hand he might be there every day. For all we know he is."

"Get anywhere with the Garwells?" Superintendent Leeyes always changed his ground rather than be forced into a conclusion which might subsequently turn out to be incorrect. His subordinates rarely caught him out-even if they never realised why it was.

Sloan obediently told him how far he had got with the Garwells.

Leeyes sniffed. "Funny, that."

"Yes, sir. The General very nearly threw a fit and Mrs. Hibbs knew something. I'm sure of that."

"What about Hibbs himself?"

"Didn't move a muscle. If the name meant anything to him, it didn't show in his face like it did in hers."

"Is he putting the girl out?" said Leeyes hopefully. "That might mean something."

"No." Sloan shook his head. "He says she's a protected tenant but in any case he wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"It's still a bit feudal out there, sir."

"They had this sort of trouble in feudal times."

"Gave me the impression, sir, that he felt a bit responsible for his tenants."

"Impression be blowed," retorted Leeyes vigorously. "What we want to know is whether he was literally responsible for the girl. Biologically speaking."

"Quite so," murmured Sloan weakly.

"It's all very well for him to be hinting that he couldn't put her on the street because it wasn't expected of a man in his position but," Leeyes said glaring, "that's as good a way of concealing a real stake in her welfare as any."

"Sort of taking a fatherly interest?" suggested Sloan sedulously.

The Superintendent snorted. "This village patriarch of yours-what's his wife like?"

"Tall, what you might call a commanding presence."

Leeyes looked interested. He felt he had one of those himself.

"She didn't," said Sloan cautiously, "strike me as the sort of woman to overlook even one wild oat."

"There you are then." He veered away from the subject of the Hibbs's as quickly as he had brought it up. "What next?"

"The inquest is in an hour." Sloan looked at his watch. "And then a few inquiries about young Master Thorpe of Shire Oak Farm."

"Oh?" Leeyes's head came up like a hound just offered a new scent.

"He," said Sloan meaningfully, "doesn't care who she is. He just wants to marry her as soon as possible. That may only be love's young dream..."

"Ahah," the Superintendent leered at Sloan. "From what you've said she's a mettlesome girl."

"On the other hand," said Sloan repressively, "it may not."

The Rector of Larking and Mrs. Meyton and Bill Thorpe all went into Berebury with Henrietta for the inquest. It was to be held in the Town Hall and they met Felix Arbican, the solicitor, about half an hour beforehand in one of the numerous rooms leading off the main hall.

"I can't predict the outcome," was the first thing he said to them after shaking hands gravely. "You may get a verdict of death by misadventure. You may get an adjournment."

"Oh, dear," said Henrietta.

"The police may want more time to find the driver of the car..."

"And Cyril Jenkins."

Arbican started. "Who?"

Henrietta told him about the previous afternoon.

"I'm very glad to hear you've seen him," responded the solicitor. "It would seem at this juncture that a little light on the proceedings would be a great help."

"No light was shed," said Henrietta astringently.

"None?"

"We couldn't find him in the crowd," said Bill Thorpe.

Arbican turned to Thorpe and asked shrewdly, "Were you able to identify him?"

Bill Thorpe shook his head. "I only saw his back."

"I see. So Miss Jenkins is the only person who is certain who it was and the police haven't yet found him?"

"Yes," intervened Henrietta tersely.

"Extraordinary business altogether."

"More extraordinary than that," said Mr. Meyton, and told him about the medals.

Arbican's limpid gaze fell upon the Rector. "Most peculiar. Let us hope that the police are able to find this man and that when they do some-er-satisfactory explanation is forthcoming." He coughed. "In the meantime I think we had better come back to the more immediate matter of the inquest."

Henrietta lifted her face expectantly. The animation which had been there since she saw Cyril Jenkins had gone.

"Your part, Miss Jenkins, is quite simple. You have only to establish ident.i.ty."

"Quite simple!" she echoed bitterly. "It's anything but simple."

"To establish ident.i.ty as you knew it," amplified Arbican. "If the police have evidence that Grace Jenkins was not- er-Grace Jenkins they will bring it. As far as you are concerned that has always been the name by which you knew her..."

"Yes."

"Strong presumptive evidence. In any case..."

"Yes?"

"The Coroner holds an inquest on a body, not-so to speak-on a person. An unknown body sometimes."

"I see."

"His duty will be to establish the cause of death. If it was from other than natural causes, and it-um-appears to have been, then he has a parallel duty to inquire into the nature of the cause."

"I see." Henrietta wasn't really listening any more. For one thing, she found it difficult to concentrate now. Her mind wandered off so easily that she couldn't keep all her attention on what someone was saying. For another she didn't really want to hear a legal lecture from a prosperous looking man in a black suit. He had never had cause to wonder who he was. He was too confident for that.

"The cause of death," he was saying didactically, "would appear to be obvious. The main point must be the ident.i.ty of the driver. If the police found him we could try suing for damages."

"Damages?"

"Substantial damages," said Arbican.

"If no one else saw the car even, let alone the driver, I don't see how they'll ever find him."

Bill Thorpe was getting restive too. "And it was nearly a week ago already."

"They'll go on trying," said the solicitor. "They're very persistent."

"You say," put in Mrs. Meyton anxiously, "that all Henrietta will have to do will be to give evidence of identification?"

"That's all, Mrs. Meyton. It won't take very long. The Coroner may want to know if Mrs. Jenkins's sight and hearing were normal. If it seems relevant her doctor could be called in as an expert witness on the point. Otherwise the Coroner will just note what she says."

" ' "Write that down," the King said'," burbled Henrietta hysterically, "' "and reduce the answer to shillings and pence" '."

Arbican looked bewildered.

"Alice in Wonderland," said the Rector as if that explained everything.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

There was a sudden stir and a rustle of feet Seven men filed into the room where the inquest was being held and sat toat one side of the dais. Henrietta looked at Arbican.

"The jury, Miss Jenkins."

She hadn't known there would be a jury.

"There is always a jury when death is caused by a vehicle on a public highway."

The Rector counted them. "I thought juries were like apostles..."

Arbican frowned. "I beg your pardon?"

"Twelve in number."

"Not for a Coroner's Inquest."

"So We Are Seven?"

Arbican frowned again. "We are seven?"

"It's another quotation," said Mr. Meyton kindly.

Henrietta was the first person to be called. A man handed her a Bible and told her what to say.

"I hearby swear by Almighty G.o.d that the evidence I shall give touching the death of Grace Edith Jenkins shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."