Henrietta Who? (5 page)

“Added to which we're leaving an unprotected girl, who has just been subjected to a great emotional shock, alone in a relatively isolated house to which we strongly suspect someone has already gained admittance with a key.”

“She could go to friends. There must be someone near who would have her.”

“I don't doubt that but it would be most unwise of her to go to them.”

“Unwise, sir?”

“Unwise, Crosby. If we advise it and she goes she might have difficulty in regaining possession of her mother's—of Mrs. Jenkins's—belongings.”

“I hadn't thought about that, sir.” There was a distinct pause while Crosby did think about it, then, “From whom, sir?”

“I don't know.”

“I see, sir.” He didn't, in fact, see anything at all but thought it prudent not to say so.

“Have you thought that after this she may well not be in a position to prove her title to the cottage tenancy?”

“No, sir.” Crosby digested this in silence. Then, “A sort of Tichborne Claimant in reverse, you might say, sir.”

“That's it,” agreed Sloan. Crosby, who was ambitious for promotion, had recently taken to looking up old cases. He stood for a moment beside the police car and then said, “A landlord usually knows a tenant as well as anyone after a while. Drive to The Hall, Crosby.”

It lay between the village and Boundary Cottage, to the south of the church. Whereas the rectory was Georgian, The Hall was older. It was quite small but perfectly proportioned.

“That's it,” observed Sloan with satisfaction. “They had a bit about it in one of those magazines last year. My wife showed it to me. Late Tudor.”

“Make a nice rest home for tired constables,” said Crosby.

James Hibbs saw them in his study. He was a well-built man in well-built tweeds. His hair was black running to gray and Sloan put his age at about fifty-five. As they went in two aristocratic gun dogs looked the two policemen over, decided they were not fair game and settled back disdainfully on the hearth.

“Shocking business,” agreed Hibbs. “Don't like to think of something like that happening on your own doorstep, do you?”

“No, sir.”

“Any news of the fellow who did it?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“All in good time, I suppose.” He sighed. “A good woman. Brought that girl up very well considering.”

“Considering what, sir?”

Hibbs waved a hand. “That she'd had to do it on her own. No father, you know. Just her pension.”

“Had you known her long?”

“Couldn't say I really knew her at all. She wasn't that sort of a woman. But she'd been here quite a while.” He looked curiously at Sloan. “She came to Larking in the war. Couldn't tell you exactly when. Is it important?”

“No, sir. What we're trying to trace are some other relatives besides the girl.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, I suppose she's still under age. Must be, of course, now I come to think of it.”

“Why?”

“The Thorpe boy wanted to marry Henrietta and Mrs. Jenkins said no.”

“Really, sir? On what grounds?”

“Age. The girl wasn't twenty-one at the time and still at university. Another year to go, then.”

Sloan's gaze traveled upwards over the fireplace. An old oar, smoke-darkened, rested above it. A long time ago James Hibbs had rowed for his college.

“Nice lad,” remarked Hibbs inconsequentially. “Can't think why she opposed it.”

“To go back a bit further, sir …”

“Yes?”

“When she came here. Do you know where it was from?”

Hibbs frowned. “I had an idea it was East Calleshire somewhere but I couldn't be certain. I'd plenty of empty cottages on my hands at the time and old White would have been glad enough to get a tenant of any sort.”

“Old White?”

“My agent at the time. Dead now, of course. He fixed it all up. I was only here intermittently. On leave.”

“I see.”

“Never thought we'd get anyone to live in Boundary Cottage after old Miss Potter died. Too far out.”

“And how did you get Mrs. Jenkins?”

Hibbs shrugged his shoulders. “I couldn't tell you, Inspector, not at this distance of time. White might have advertised it but I doubt it. Sending good money after bad in those days.”

“Not now, sir.”

“Good Lord, no. I could have sold it a dozen times since then if it had been empty. Sort of place people see on a Sunday afternoon drive in summer time and think they'd like to live in.”

“Yes.” Sloan looked reflectively round the study. “You wouldn't happen to have any records about this tenancy still, would you, sir?”

Hibbs considered this. “It's worth a look, I suppose. Old White was one of the old school. Neatest man I ever knew. Care to walk across to the Estate Office?”

Hibbs introduced them to the young man who was working there, called Threlkeld.

“Boundary Cottage, Mr. Hibbs?” Threlkeld stepped across to a filing cabinet. In the background Sloan could hear the low hum of a milking machine plant. The Hall was being run on very businesslike lines. A file was produced. “What was it you wished to see?”

“The tenancy agreement, please.”

Sloan watched him turn back the contents of the file. On top were details of the Rural District Council's Main Drainage connections, then, under a date for a few years earlier an estimate for repairs to the roof, Schedule “A” forms galore, more estimates, much smaller ones as they went back through the years. Nothing recorded the falling value of the pound like labor costs.

And rent.

Sloan almost—but not quite—whistled aloud when he saw the figure.

“Not a lot, is it?” said Hibbs ruefully. “That's the Rent Restriction Act for you.”

Threlkeld went on turning back the pages. Everything was in date order. Suddenly the handwriting changed to an old-fashioned copperplate.

“Old White,” said Hibbs. “Wrote a beautiful fist.”

Threlkeld paused. “Here we are, Mr. Hibbs. Miss Potter died in December.”

“Pneumonia,” said Hibbs. “I can remember that much.”

“The new tenant,” went on Threlkeld, “took possession at the end of May. It was empty in between. You apparently signed an all-repairs lease.”

“For my sins,” groaned Hibbs.

“And it was accepted by her solicitors on behalf of their client in this letter, dated May 28th.”

“Oh,” said Sloan.

“It
was
East Calleshire then,” said Hibbs. “I had an idea it was. Look, they were Calleford solicitors.”

Sloan leaned over and read the address aloud. “Waind, Arbican & Waind, Ox Lane, Calleford.”

Acting on behalf of their client, Mrs. G.E. Jenkins, they had advised her to accept Mr. Hibbs's offer of Boundary Cottage, Larking, at the rent as stated.

“You don't remember her at all before this date, sir?”

Hibbs shook his head. “No. She came quite out of the blue. Old White probably thought that was a fair enough rent at the time and better than nothing.”

“He was wrong,” said Threlkeld unwisely. “No rent at all would have been better.”

Hibbs turned. “It's easy to be wise after the event, Threlkeld. Besides, in those days one did give some consideration to widows and orphans.”

Hibbs agreed readily enough to Sloan borrowing the letter and they took it back to Berebury with them.

Henrietta waited until Sloan and Crosby had gone.

She made herself stay sitting down in the front room until she heard the police car draw away. Then she slipped on a coat and left the house.

It was fresher outside. There was a March wind blowing and she felt more free than in the confined atmosphere of the house. Boundary Cottage had suddenly become much too small for her—there hardly seemed air enough inside for her to breathe.

She didn't go along the road but through the orchard behind the cottage and then along the old footpath. It brought her out near the church. Across the green from the church was the rectory.

She went up to the door. It was half open. Somewhere beyond in the wide hall someone was counting aloud.

“Four, five …”

She knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” called a woman's voice.

“I d—don't know,” said Henrietta miserably.

“Well, come in whoever it is. Oh, it's you, Henrietta. Come in, dear, and just hold that for me, will you, while I finish these. I won't be a minute.” A short, stout woman pushed a pile of freshly laundered surplices into Henrietta's hands. “Now, where was I?”

“Five.”

“Six, seven, eight—what that Callows boy does with his, I can't think—nine, ten. That's the lot, thank goodness.” She took the bundle back again. “Edward can take them across with him later. Now, come along in by the fire. You look frozen.”

“I'm not cold. Just a bit shaky, that's all.”

“I'm not surprised,” retorted Mrs. Meyton. “Losing your poor mother like that. A terrible shock. The rector was coming down to see you this afternoon. Didn't you get his message?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.” Henrietta drew in a deep breath. “Mrs. Meyton …”

“Yes, dear?”

“I want you to tell me something.”

“What's that?”

“Do you remember my mother and I coming here?”

Mrs. Meyton nodded vigorously. “Yes, dear. It was just before the war ended.”

“Did we come together?”

“Did we come together?” She smiled. “Of course you did. You were only a very tiny baby, you know. I remember it quite well. Such a sad little family.”

“My father …”

Here Mrs. Meyton shook her head. “No, it was just after he was killed. I never met him.”

“But,” urgently, “you do remember us coming together?”

“Certainly. Boundary Cottage had been empty for a long time—since old Miss Potter died, in fact—and I remember how glad we were that someone was going to live in it after all.” Mrs. Meyton raised her eyebrows heavenwards. “A rare old state it was in, I can tell you, but your mother soon got to work on it and she had it as right as ninepence in next to no time—garden and all.”

“She liked things just so.”

Mrs. Meyton wasn't listening. “How the years do go by. It hardly seems the other day but it must be all of twenty years.”

“Twenty-one,” said Henrietta. “I'll be twenty-one next month.”

“I suppose you will.” Mrs. Meyton regarded the passing years with disfavor. “I don't know where the time goes. And the older you get the more quickly it passes.”

“Baptism,” said Henrietta suddenly.

“What about it, dear?”

“Was I christened here in Larking?”

But here Mrs. Meyton's parochial memory failed her. She frowned hard. “Now, I would have to think about that. Is it important? Edward would know. At least,” she added loyally, “he could look it up in the Register.”

Memory was not one of the rector's strong points.

“Do you think he would? You see”—she swallowed hard—“you see, the police have just told me that Grace Jenkins wasn't my mother after all.”

Mrs. Meyton looked disbelieving. “Not your mother?”

“That's what they said.”

“But,” said Mrs. Meyton in a perplexed voice, “if she wasn't, who was?”

“That's what I'd like to know.” There was a catch in her voice as she said, “I expect I'm illegitimate.”

“Nonsense.” Mrs. Meyton shook her head. There were thirty years of being a clergy wife behind her when she said, “Your mother wasn't the sort of woman to have an illegitimate baby.”

“She hadn't ever had any children,” said Henrietta bleakly, “and she wasn't my mother, so it doesn't apply.”

“I shouldn't have said myself,” went on Mrs. Meyton, “that she was the sort of woman either to say she'd had a baby if it wasn't hers.”

“Neither would I,” agreed Henrietta promptly. “That's the funny thing.”

“But if she did,” sensibly, “I expect she had a good reason. They must have adopted you.”

“I hadn't thought of that.”

“A cup of tea,” said Mrs. Meyton decisively, “that's what we both need.”

Ten minutes later Henrietta put her cup down with a clatter. “I've just thought of something.”

“What's that, dear?”

“How do I know I'll be twenty-one in April?”

“Because …” Mrs. Meyton's voice trailed away. “Oh, I see what you mean.” Then, “A birth certificate, dear. You must have a birth certificate. Everyone does.”

“Do they? I've never seen mine.”

“You'll have one somewhere. You'll see. Your mother will have kept it in a safe place for sure.”

“The bureau!” cried Henrietta.

“That's right,” said Mrs. Meyton comfortably.

“It's not right,” retorted Henrietta. “Someone broke into the bureau on Tuesday.”

“Oh, dear.”

“And there's certainly no birth certificate in there now.”

“A copy,” said Mrs. Meyton gamely. “You can send for one from Somerset House.”

“But don't you see,” cried Henrietta in despair, “if she wasn't my mother I don't know what name to ask for.”

FIVE

“Crosby.”

“Sir?” Crosby had one ear glued to the telephone receiver but he listened to Sloan with the other.

“You tell me why a woman brings up a child as her own when it isn't.”

“Adopted, sir, that's all.”

“Why?”

“Why adopt, sir? I couldn't say, sir. Seems quite unnecessary to me. Asking for trouble.” His early years on the beat had made a child-hater out of Crosby.

“Why adopt when she did,” said Sloan. “That's what I want to know.”

“When?” echoed Crosby.

“The middle of a war, that's when. With her husband on active service.”