“What’s going to happen?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully, “but we’re dealing with a confirmed murderer.”
“Inspector …” Henrietta found it easier to talk in the dark. She had the feeling that she was alone with Sloan though she knew Constable Crosby was in the next room and P.C. Hepple in the kitchen and heaven knew who outside. “Inspector, do you know now who I am?”
“Yes, miss, I think so. We’ll have to check with Somerset House in the morning but …”
“Who?” she asked directly.
“Henrietta Mantriot.”
“Mantriot.” She tested out the sound, tentative as a bride with a new surname. “Henrietta Eleanor Leslie Mantriot.”
“Your mother …” began Sloan.
“Yes?” There was a sudden constriction in her voice.
“We think she was called Eleanor Leslie. The spelling of Leslie ought to have given us a clue.”
“I’ve often wondered,” she remarked, “where those names came from.”
“She’s been dead a long time,” volunteered Sloan.
This did not seem to disturb the girl. “I knew she must have been,” she said, “otherwise Grace Jenkins wouldn’t have …”
“No.”
“And my father, Inspector?”
“Your father, miss, we think was a certain Captain Hugo Mantriot.”
“Master Hugo!” she cried.
“Shhhhhsh, miss. We must be very quiet now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “I was always hearing about Master Hugo. I never dreamt that …”
“Now you know why, miss.” Sloan heard Crosby’s whisper before Henrietta did and he was on his feet and out in the hall in a flash.
“Someone coming down the Belling road, sir.”
“Upstairs,” commanded Sloan. “Quickly. You too, miss.”
In the end he went up with her and stood at the landing window. Together they watched someone approach the cottage on foot, slide open the gate and disappear behind some bushes in the garden.
“He’s not coming in,” whispered Henrietta.
“Not yet,” murmured Sloan. “Give him time. He’s waiting to see if the coast’s clear.” He withdrew from the window and passed the word down to Crosby and Hepple to be very quiet now.
It was quite still inside Boundary Cottage.
The next move was a complete surprise to everyone.
Constable Crosby’s hoarse whisper reached Sloan and Henrietta on the front upstairs landing.
“There’s someone else, sir.”
“Where?”
“Coming down the Belling road.”
The visitor did not pause in the garden. He came straight up to the front door.
“Inspector,” said Henrietta. “Look! The man in the garden. He’s following the other one in.”
Sloan did not stay to reply. He moved back to the head of the stairs and waited there, watching the front door open.
“He’s got a key,” breathed Henrietta, hearing it being inserted into the lock.
“Sssshhhhh,” cautioned Sloan. “Don’t speak now.”
The front door opened soundlessly and someone came in. Whoever it was moved forward and then turned to shut the door behind him.
Only it wouldn’t shut.
And it wouldn’t shut for a time-honored reason. There was someone else’s foot in it.
Someone pushed from the inside and someone else pushed from the outside. The outside pusher must have been the stronger of the two for in the end the door opened wide enough to admit him.
Henrietta recognized the silhouette dimly outlined against the night sky and framed by the doorway. She clutched the banister rail for support. No wonder he had got the door opened in spite of the other man. Bill Thorpe was the strongest man she knew.
Bill Thorpe was apparently not content with having got the door open. He now advanced upon the other man, flinging himself against him. There was a surprised grunt, followed by a muffled oath. Then a different sound, the sudden ripping of cloth. In the darkness it sounded like a pistol shot.
It was enough for Detective Inspector Sloan.
He switched on the lights.
“The police!” cried a somewhat disheveled Felix Arbican. “Thank God for that. I caught this young man breaking into …”
“Felix Forrest Arbican,” said Sloan lawfully from halfway up the stairs, “I arrest you for the murder of Cyril Edgar Jenkins and must warn you that anything you say may be …”
“Thank you,” retorted the solicitor coldly, “I am aware of the formula.”
NINETEEN
“I thought it would be the solicitor,” said Superintendent Leeyes unfairly. “Bound to be when you came to think about it.”
“Yes, sir.” Sloan was sitting in the superintendent’s office the next morning, turning in his report.
“What put you on to him in the beginning, Sloan?”
“It was the very first time we saw him, sir. I asked him if he knew of a client called Mrs. G.E. Jenkins and he said no.”
“And?”
“And in the same interview he referred to her as Grace Jenkins though neither Crosby nor I had mentioned her Christian name, so I reckoned he knew her all right.”
Leeyes grunted. “Stroke of bad luck that Hibbs fellow keeping his letter all those years.”
“Yes and no, sir. He’d written it a bit ambiguously at the time—it could indicate a settlement like he said if you cared to look at it that way, so it could have been said to have served his case as well.” He paused. “I think he would know that an agent would file it, too. Besides …”
“Besides what?”
“It was a sort of insurance, sir. If we should get hold of it, it would bring him into the picture and keep him in touch in a rather privileged way, wouldn’t it?”
Leeyes grunted again.
“That’s why I told the girl about him early on,” said Sloan temerariously.
“You did what?”
“Sort of hinted that he was her mother’s solicitor and so …” Sloan waved a hand and left the sentence unfinished.
“Suppose,” suggested Leeyes heavily, “we go back to the very beginning.”
“The last war,” said Sloan promptly. “A promising young officer in the East Calleshires called Hugo Mantriot of Great Rooden Manor.”
“Where’s that?”
“Just south of Calleford.” Sloan resumed his narrative. “This Hugo Mantriot marries the only daughter of the late Bruce Leslie.”
“Who’s he?”
“The shipping magnate.”
“Money?”
“Lots.”
Leeyes nodded, satisfied.
“They have a baby girl,” went on Sloan.
“Henrietta?”
“Henrietta Eleanor Leslie Mantriot.” Sloan paused. “When she’s about six weeks old her father comes home on leave to Great Rooden and there’s a terrible—er—incident.”
“What?” bluntly.
“According to the reports at the time Captain Hugo Mantriot went completely out of his mind, shot his wife and then himself. The coroner was very kind—said some soothing sentences about the man’s mind being turned by his wartime experiences and so forth. The whole thing played down as much as possible, of course.”
Leeyes grunted.
“Twenty-four people had been killed by a flying bomb in Calleford the same week—the police had more than enough to do—the coroner hinted that the Mantriots were really casualties of war in very much the same way as the flying bomb victims.”
“Arbican kill them both?” suggested Leeyes briefly.
“I shouldn’t wonder, sir, at all, though we’re not likely to find out at this stage.” Sloan turned over a new page in his notebook. “Mrs. Mantriot had made a new will when the baby was born. I’ve had someone turn it up for me in Somerset House this morning and read it out. She created a trust for the baby should anything happen to either parent.”
“She being at risk as much as he was in those days,” put in Leeyes, who could remember them.
“Exactly, sir. Those were the days when things did happen to people, besides which her husband was on active service and there was a fair bit of money involved. So she created this trust with the trustees as …”
“Don’t tell me,” groaned Leeyes.
“That’s right, sir. Waind, Arbican & Waind. After all, of course, it’s only guesswork on my part …”
“Well?”
“I reckon Grace Jenkins was already in the employment of the Mantriots as the baby’s nanny. She was a daughter of Jenkins at Holly Tree Farm in Rooden Parva, which isn’t all that far away.”
“So?”
“I think Arbican suggested to her that she look after the baby. Probably put it into her mind that the infant shouldn’t be told about the murder and suicide of her parents—that would seem a pretty disgraceful thing to a simple country girl like her.”
Leeyes grunted.
“From there,” said Sloan, “it’s a fairly easy step to getting her to pass the baby off as her own until the child was twenty-one. All done with the highest motives, of course.”
“Of course,” agreed Leeyes. “And he keeps them both, I suppose?”
“That’s right. Sets Grace Jenkins up in a remote cottage, maintains the household at a distance and not very generously at that.”
“Verisimilitude,” said Leeyes.
“Pardon, sir?”
“You wouldn’t expect a widow and child to have a lot of money.”
“No, sir, of course not. Grace Jenkins falls for it like a lamb. Takes along a photograph of her own brother to forestall questions, and Hugo Mantriot’s medals, and puts her back into bringing up Master Hugo’s baby as if it’s her own.”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing, sir, for nearly twenty-one years. During which time the Wainds in the firm die off, public memory dies down and Felix Arbican gets through a fair slice of what Bruce Leslie left his daughter.”
“The day of reckoning,” said Leeyes slowly, “would be Henrietta’s twenty-first birthday.”
“That’s right. Grace Jenkins had no intention of carrying the pretense further than that. She was a loyal servant and an honest woman.”
“So?”
“She had to go,” said Sloan simply, “and before Henrietta came back from university.”
“He just overlooked the one thing,” said Sloan.
It was the afternoon now and Sloan and Crosby were sitting in the rectory drawing room. In spite of all her protestations Henrietta had gone to the rectory the previous night—or rather, in the early hours of the morning—after all. Bill Thorpe and P.C. Hepple had escorted her there to make—as Sloan said at the time—assurance doubly sure. Once there Mrs. Meyton had taken it upon herself to protect her from all comers and she had been allowed to sleep on through the morning.
Now they were all forgathered in the rectory again—bar the main consultant, so to speak. The case was nearly over, the rectory china looked suitably unfragile and Mrs. Meyton’s teapot as if it contained tea of a properly dark brown hue—so Sloan had consented to a cup.
“Just one thing,” he repeated.
Nobody 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 passport.”
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 Jenkins, miss, 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 humor. This Wright business …”
“Yes?”
“I expect you’ve all heard the expression about Mr. Right coming along.”
Henrietta colored. “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 together the 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 Saturday 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 bashfully. “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
probably took 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 realize 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.”
Henrietta Who? Page 17