Henrietta Who Part 31

"Just one thing," he repeated.

n.o.body took a lot of notice. Henrietta and Bill Thorpe were looking at each other as if for the very first time. Mrs. Meyton was counting cups. Constable Crosby seemed preoccupied with a large bruise that was coming up on his knuckle.

"What was that?" asked Mrs. Meyton with Christian kindness.

"That a routine post-mortem would establish the fact of Grace Jenkins's childlessness."

"Otherwise?"

"Otherwise I doubt if we would have looked further than a Road Traffic Accident. We wouldn't have had any reason to..."

"Then what?" put in Bill Thorpe.

"Then nothing very much," said Sloan. "Inspector Harpe would have added it to his list of unsolved hit-and-runs and that would have been that. Miss Mantriot would..."

Henrietta looked quite startled. "No one's ever called me that before."

Sloan smiled and continued. "Miss Mantriot would have gone back to university none the wiser. She's twenty-one next month. The only likely occasion for her to need a birth certificate after that would be for a pa.s.sport."

Bill Thorpe nodded. "And if it wasn't forthcoming, she wouldn't even know where to begin to look."

"Exactly."

"Hamstrung," said Bill Thorpe expressively.

"But," said Henrietta, "what about her telling me she had been a Miss Wright before she married?"

Sloan's expression relaxed a little. "I never met Grace Jenmiss, but I've-well-come to respect her quite a bit in the last week. I think she had what you might call an ironic sense of humour. This Wright business..."

"Yes?"

"I expect you've all heard the expression about Mr. Right coming along."

Henrietta coloured. "Yes."

"Me," said Bill Thorpe brightly.

"Perhaps," said Sloan. "In her case I think when she had to choose a maiden name so to speak-she chose Wright in reverse."

"Well done, Grace Jenkins," said Mr. Meyton.

"That's what I think too, sir," said Sloan. "The same thing applies in a way with the Hocklington-Garwells who had us running round in circles for a bit."

"What about it?"

"When she had to choose the name of a family she'd worked for-you know the sort of questions children ask, and she couldn't very well say Mantriot-I think she put tothe names of two people involved in an old Calleshire scandal."

"Hocklington and Garwell?"

"That's right. I gather it was a pretty well-known affair in the county in the old days."

"That's how Mrs. Hibbs knew about it!" said Crosby suddenly.

"I didn't know you'd noticed," said his superior kindly, "but you're quite right."

"But it had nothing to do with the case at all?" said the Rector, anxious to get at least one thing quite clear.

"Nothing," said Sloan.

"So there was a reason why she was older than I thought," said Henrietta.

Sloan nodded. "And for her having her hair dyed and for her not liking having her photograph taken."

"And for Cyril Jenkins having to be killed," said Bill Thorpe logically.

"He was her brother. And, of course, he knew the whole story. As far as Grace Jenkins was concerned there was no reason why he shouldn't."

"So he had to die," concluded Mr. Meyton.

"Once I'd seen him," cried Henrietta. "He was quite safe until then."

"Not really, miss. You see, he would have known about your going to be told the truth when you were twenty-one. He'd have smelt a rat about his sister's death before very long." He paused. "That's what put James Hibbs in the clear for once and for all."

"What did?"

"He didn't know you'd seen Cyril Jenkins so there was no call for him to be killing him on Sat.u.r.day afternoon."

"I hadn't thought of that..."

"The only people who knew were young Mr. Thorpe here, Arbican himself..."

"I told him," said Henrietta, with a shudder.

"And Mr. and Mrs. Meyton here."

"How did you know it wasn't me?" enquired Bill Thorpe with deep interest.

"I couldn't be quite sure. Especially when you turned up last night."

"I wasn't going to come in," said Thorpe somewhat bash"I just wanted to keep an eye on the place. Besides, I didn't have a key."

"He had," said Henrietta. She meant Arbican but didn't seem able to say the name.

"Yes, miss, he had. Had it for years, I expect. He used that when he came in on Tuesday. He had to make sure Grace Jenkins hadn't left anything incriminating around. He probatook your birth certificate away with him then and anything else that might have given the game away."

"Inspector." Henrietta pushed back a wayward strand of hair. "What did happen on Tuesday?"

"We can't be quite sure but I should imagine Arbican summoned Grace Jenkins over to Calleford for a conference. You can imagine the sort of thing. 'Henrietta's coming home-she's twenty-one next month-got to be told-modest celebration' and so forth."

Henrietta winced.

"That would explain the Sunday best that so puzzled Mrs. Callows and Mrs. Ricks," said Sloan, "and her catching the early bus into Berebury and the last bus back. Berebury to Calleford is a very slow run, you know. The bus calls at all the villages on the way."

"He wouldn't have her to his office, surely?"

"No. I expect he took her out to lunch, then put her on the bus back which he knew would get her into Berebury after the five fifteen to Larking had left."

"So he knew she would be on the seven five?"

"That's right Then he drives himself cross country. It's a much shorter run. First he goes through the bureau and then waits in the pub car park until the bus gets in. He would be able to see her get off. All he has to do then is to time her walk until she's near enough to the bad corner for it to seem like a nasty accident."

"Which it wasn't," said Henrietta.

"No, miss."

"Inspector." The Rector spoke up. "What was Arbican's motive in all this?"

"Gain," said Sloan succinctly. "Carefully calculated and very expertly carried out. Unless he confesses we shall never know whether he contrived the deaths of Henrietta's father and mother. It isn't impossible and they fell very smartly after the legal arrangements had been completed, but there is another death we do know something about now..."

"Cyril Jenkins, you mean?"

"Him, too, sir," Sloan said to the Rector, "but that was afterwards. This one was before Grace Jenkins was killed."

It was very quiet in the Rectory drawing room.

"Who was that, Inspector?"

"A certain Miss Winifred Lendry, sir."

"I've never heard of her," said Mr. Meyton.

"I don't suppose any of you have." Sloan looked round the room. "It is her death that makes us realise that this was all a long term plan. Miss Lendry was Arbican's confidential secretary until she was killed by a hit-and-run driver last autumn."

It was on the Thursday morning that Constable Crosby picked up the telephone and handed the receiver to Detective-Inspector Sloan.

"For you, sir. The Kinnisport police."

"Good morning," said Sloan.

"About this Major Hocklington," began his opposite number in Kinnisport. "Do you want us to watch him for ever? I've had a man posted outside his house for days now and the old boy hasn't stepped out of his wheelchair once..."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

CATHERINE AIRD had never tried her hand at writing suspense stories before publishing The Religious Body -a novel which immediately established her as one of the genre's most talented writers. A Late Phoenix, The Stately Home Murder, His Burial Too, Some Die Eloquent, Henrietta Who? and A Most Contagious Game have subsequently enhanced her reputation. Her ancestry is Scottish, but she now lives in a village in East Kent, near Canterbury, where she serves as an aid to her father, a doctor, and takes an interest in local affairs.

end.