Henrietta Who? iscm-2

by Catherine Aird

  "You mean he might have died a natural death?"

  "People do, you know," said Thorpe mildly. "Even in war."

  She was silent for a moment. Then, "Nothing seems to make sense any more."

  "Everything has an explanation."

  "This must sound very silly," she said, choosing her words carefully, "but let me say what I know for certain. There is a photograph…"

  "The photograph is a fact," acknowledged Bill Thorpe.

  "Which you have seen."

  "Then the photograph is doubly a fact," he murmured ironically.

  "There is a photograph of a man in the uniform of this regiment in the drawing room at home, and…"

  "And that," said Bill Thorpe, "is all you know for certain."

  She stared at him. "A man who I thought was my father."

  "Ah, that's different."

  "Who I thought was called Jenkins."

  "Who may or may not be called Jenkins."

  "And who I thought was killed in the war."

  Bill Thorpe pointed to the memorial again. "Don't you see that he might be called Jenkins or he might have been killed in the war—but not both. The facts are mutually exclusive— unless he changed regiments halfway through or something out of the ordinary like that."

  "Or died a natural death," persisted the girl.

  "Or a very unnatural one," retorted Thorpe.

  Henrietta waited.

  "Well," said Thorpe defensively, "if he'd been shot as a spy or a deserter or something like that…"

  "I hadn't thought of that."

  "…We're hardly likely to find his name here, are we?"Bill waved a hand which took in all the hallowed thirteenth-century stone about them.

  "That means," decided Henrietta logically, "that you don't think the man in the photograph is…" she hesitated, "or was my father."

  "There is something wrong with the medals…"

  "There's something wrong with everything so far," rejoined Henrietta. "We're collecting quite a bit of negative evidence."

  "Just as useful as the other sort," declared Thorpe.

  "I'm glad to hear it," she said rather tartly. "At the mo-ment the only thing we seem to be absolutely sure about is that there is a photograph of a sergeant in the East Cal-leshires which has been standing in Boundary Cottage ever since I can remember."

  "The photograph is a fact," agreed Bill Thorpe with un-diminished amiability.

  "And so is the name of Jenkins not being on this memorial."

  "The evidence is before our very eyes, as the conjurors say."

  "And the police say Grace Jenkins wasn't my mother."

  Bill Thorpe looked down at her affectionately. "I reckon that makes you utterly orphan, don't you?"

  She nodded.

  "Quite a good thing, really," said Thorpe easily.

  Henrietta's head came up with a jerk. "Why?"

  "I don't have to ask anyone's permission to marry you."

  She didn't respond. "I'm worse than just orphan. I don't even know who I am or who my parents were."

  "Does it matter?"

  "Matter?" Henrietta opened her eyes very wide.

  "Well, I can see it's important with—say—Shire Oak Majestic. A bull's got to have a good pedigree to be worth anything."

  "I fail to see any connection," said Henrietta icily.

  "I'm not in love with your ancestors…"

  The verger ambled up behind them. "Found what you were looking for, sir, on that memorial?"

  "What's that? Oh, yes, thank you, verger," said Thorpe. "We found what we were looking for all right."

  "That's good, sir. Good afternoon to you both."

  Not unexpectedly, Mr. Felix Arbican or Messrs. Waind, Arbican & Waind, Solicitors, shared Henrietta's view rather than Bill Thorpe's on the importance of parentage. He heard her story out and then said, "Tricky."

  "Yes," agreed Henrietta politely. She regarded that as a gross understatement.

  "It raises several—er—legal points."

  "Not only legal ones," said Henrietta.

  "What's that? Oh, yes, quite so. The accident, for instance." Arbican made a gesture of sympathy. "I'm sorry. There are so many cars on the road these days." He brought his hands up to form a pyramid under his chin. "She was walking, you say…"

  "She was."

  "Then there should be less question of liability."

  "There is no question of where the blame for the accident lies," said Henrietta slowly. "Only the driver still has to be found."

  "He didn't stop?"

  She shook her head.

  "Nor report it to the police?"

  "Not that I've heard."

  "That's a great pity. If he had done, there would have been little more to do—little more from a professional point of view, that is, than to settle the question of responsibility with the insurance company, and agree damages."

  Henrietta inclined her head in silence.

  "And they usually settle out of court."

  Henrietta moistened her lips. "There is to be an inquest… on Saturday morning."

  "Naturally."

  "Is Berebury too far for you to come?"

  "You want me to represent you? If your—er—mother was a client of mine at one time—and it seems very much as if she must have been, then I will certainly do that."

  "The Inspector told me she came to you once…"

  "A long time ago."

  "You don't recall her?"

  Arbican shook his head.

  Henrietta lapsed back in her chair in disappointment "I was so hoping you would. I need someone who knew her before very badly…"

  "Quite so." The solicitor coughed. "I think in these—er— somewhat unusual circumstances my advice would be that you should first establish if a legal adoption has taken place. That would put a different complexion on the whole affair. You say there are no papers in the house whatsoever?"

  "None. There was this burglary, you see…"

  Arbican nodded. "It doesn't make matters easier."

  "No."

  "In the absence of any written evidence we could begin a search of the court adoption registers…" Henrietta looked up eagerly.

  "But it will necessarily be a slow business. There are about forty County Courts, you see, and—er—several hundred Magistrates' Courts."

  "I see."

  "A will," said Arbican cautiously, "might clarify matters."

  "In what way?"

  "It would perhaps refer to the relationship between you and Grace Jenkins. Whilst not being her—er—child of the body you could still stand in a legal relationship to her."

  "I don't see how."

  "Have you thought that you could be a child of an earlier marriage of one of the two parties?"

  She sighed. "I don't know what to think."

  "If that were so then you must have been the child of one of them…"

  "Not Grace Jenkins," reiterated Henrietta.

  "If you aren't," went on the solicitor, "and the fact of this in each case can be proved, then you could be a child of a marriage, the surviving partner of which subsequently married one of the two persons whom you had hitherto considered your parents…"

  She put her hands up to her head. "You're going too quickly."

  "That would entail a third marriage on someone's part— but three marriages are not out of the place these days."

  "It—it's very complicated, isn't it?"

  "The law," said Arbican cheerfully, "is."

  She hesitated. "Mr. Arbican, if I were illegitimate?"

  The fingers came up under his chin again while the solicitor pontificated. "The law is much kinder than it used to be, and if your—the person whom you thought to be your mother has made a will in your favour it is of little consequence."

  "It isn't that," said Henrietta quickly. "Besides we—she had no money. I know that."

  Arbican looked as if he was about to say that that was of no consequence either.

  "In any case," went on Henr
ietta, "I wouldn't want to claim anything I wasn't entitled to, and if she wasrft my mother, I don't see how I can be."

  "A will," began Arbican, "would…"

  "She may not have made one," countered Henrietta, "She wasn't expecting to die."

  "Everyone should make a will," said the solicitor senten-tiously.

  While farmers lunch early, and clergy at exactly one fifteen, policemen on duty lunch not at all. Inspector Sloan and Constable Crosby found themselves back in the Berebury Police Station after two thirty with the canteen offering nothing more substantial than tea and sandwiches. Crosby laid the tray on Sloan's desk.

  "It's all they had left," he said briefly.

  "Somerset House didn't have anything either," Sloan told him, pushing a message pad across the desk. "No record of any Grace Edith Wright marrying any Cyril Edgar Jenkins within five years of either side of when the girl thought they did."

  Crosby took another sandwich and thought about this for the length of it. Then "Grace Jenkins must have had a birth certificate."

  "Wright," said Sloan automatically.

  Crosby, who thought Sloan had said "Right,"looked pleased and took another sandwich.

  "Though," continued Sloan, "if she's Wright, why bring Jenkins in at all, especially if she's not married to him." Crosby offered no opinion on this. "Moreover, where do you begin to look?"

  "Where, sir?" he echoed.

  "Where in time," explained Sloan kindly. "Not where in space. It'll all be in Somerset House. It's a question of knowwhere to look. The girl tells us Grace Jenkins was fdrty-five years old. The pathologist says she was fifty-five or thereabouts."

  "Yes," agreed Crosby helpfully.

  "And that's not the only thing. The girl says she was married to one Jenkins, deceased, and her maiden name was Wright. Somerset House can't trace the marriage and Dr. Dabbe thinks she was both unmarried and childless."

  "More tea?" suggested Crosby constructively. "Thank you." Sloan reached for his notebook. "We can't very well expect the General Register Officer to give us the birth certificate of someone whose age we don't know and whose name we aren't sure about. So, instead ;.."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "You will start looking for a family called—what was it?—ah, yes: a family called Hocklington-Garwell. And a farm."

  "A farm, sir?"

  "A Holly Tree Farm, Crosby."

  "Somewhere in England, sir?"

  "Somewhere in Calleshire," snapped Sloan.

  Crosby swallowed. "Yes, sir."

  Sloan read through the notes of the interview with Mrs. Callows. "Then there's the bus station. Grace Jenkins arrived there on Tuesday morning and left there on the seven five in the evening. See if you can find any lead on where she went in between."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Do you remember what it was that was unusual about her on Tuesday?"

  "She was killed?"

  "Try again, Constable…" dangerously.

  Crosby frowned. "She was dressed in her best…"

  "Anything else?"

  "It wasn't her day for shopping in Berebury."

  "Exactly."

  "You could just say it wasn't her day," murmured Crosby, but fortunately Inspector Sloan didn't hear him.

  Henrietta came out of the office of Waind, Arbican & Waind, and stood on the Calleford pavement. Bill Thorpe was a little way down the road and she waved. He turned and came towards her asking, "Any luck?"

  "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 identity."

  "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."

  "Nobody 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 noble 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 passers-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."