"But why on earth not?" demanded Henrietta. "Lots of children are adopted these days."
"True." The Rector hesitated. "There are other possibilities, of course."
"I"m just beginning to work them out," dryly.
"She might have had you by a previous marriage..."
"No. It wasn"t that."
"Or even-er-outside marriage."
"Nor that," said Henrietta tonelessly. "The police said so. She wasn"t anybody"s mother-ever."
"I see. There will be reasons, you know."
She sighed. "I could have understood any of those things but this just doesn"t make sense."
"It is an unusual situation." Mr. Meyton gave the impression of choosing his words with care.
"Grace Jenkins brought me up as a daughter," said Henrietta defiantly, "whatever anyone says."
"Quite so."
"And I swear no one could have been kinder..."
"No." He said tentatively, "Perhaps-had you thought- most likely of all, I suppose-that you were a child of your father"s by a previous marriage."
Mrs. Meyton who had been sitting by, worried and concerned, put in anxiously, "That would explain everything, dear, wouldn"t it?"
"I had wondered about that," said Henrietta.
The Rector stirred his tea. "It is a distinct possibility."
Henrietta stared into the fire. "That would make me her stepdaughter."
"Yes." He coughed. "It might also account for the strange fact that following his death she didn"t tell you."
"She didn"t," said Henrietta vigorously, "behave like a stepmother."
"That"s a fiction, you know," retorted the Rector. "You"ve been reading too many books."
Henrietta managed a tremulous smile, and said again, "Grace Jenkins brought me up as a daughter. I know she loved me..."
"Of course she did," insisted Mrs. Meyton.
"Perhaps that"s the wrong word," said Henrietta slowly. "It was more than that. I always felt..." She looked from one of them to the other struggling to find a word that would convey intangible meaning, "... well, cherished, if you know what I mean."
"Of course, I do," said Mrs. Meyton briskly. "And you were. Always."
"It wasn"t only that. She made great sacrifices so that I could go away to university. We had to be very careful, you know, with money." She pushed her hair back from her face and said, "She wouldn"t have done that for just anybody, would she?"
What could have been a small smile twitched at the corners of the Rector"s lips but he said gravely enough, "I think we can accept that-whoever you are-you aren"t-er-just anybody."
"But am I even Henrietta?"
"Henrietta?"
"Henrietta Eleanor Leslie-those are my Christian names..."
"Well?"
"I thought I was my mother"s daughter until this morning."
"You"re looking for proof that..."
"That at least I"m Henrietta."
"If you had been baptised here..."
"I wasn"t then?"
The Rector shook his head. "No. Your mother..."
"She wasn"t my mother."
"I"m sorry." He bowed his head. "I was forgetting. It isn"t easy to remember..."
"No." Very ironically.
"Mrs. Jenkins told me you were already baptised."
He did remember then. Aloud Henrietta said, "That"s why the bureau was broken into then. I can see that now."
"You think there must have been something there?"
"I do."
The Rector frowned. "It does rather look as if steps have been taken to conceal certain-er-facts."
Henrietta tightened her lips. "It"s not going to be easy, is it?"
"What isn"t?"
"Finding out who I am."
Sloan and Crosby saw Constable Hepple soon after they had forked left at the Post Office. He had brought a plan with him.
"You can"t see the chalk lines any more, sir," he said, "but deceased was lying roughly here."
"I see."
"Walking home and hit from behind, I"d say," went on Hepple. "People never will walk towards oncoming traffic like they should."
"No."
"His front wheel caught that bit of gra.s.s verge afterwards, deflected a bit by the impact, I"d say."
Sloan nodded.
"I"ve got a good cast of that," said Hepple.
Sloan stood in the middle of the bend and looked in both directions. It was a bad bend but with due care and attention there was no need to kill a pedestrian on it.
Hepple was still theorising. "I reckon he didn"t see her at all, sir. There"s not a suspicion of a skid mark on the road. Daresay he didn"t realise what he"d done till afterwards and then he panicked."
That was the neat and tidy explanation. And, but for Dr. Dabbe it would probably have been the one that went down on the record. Pathology was like that.
"Where exactly did you say she was lying?" asked Inspector Sloan.
Constable Hepple stood squarely on the spot where he had seen the body.
"That," p.r.o.nounced Sloan sombrely, "fits in very well with the first set of injuries..."
"The first, sir?" Hepple looked shocked. "You mean..."
"Run over twice," said Sloan succinctly. "Once each way," amplified Crosby for good measure. "But..." Hepple pointed to the patch of road where he was standing. "But, sir, someone coming the other way- from Belling St. Peter-would have had to come onto quite the wrong side of his road to hit her."
"Yes."
"But..." said Hepple again.
"I am beginning to think someone did come onto quite the wrong side of his road to hit her," said Sloan, still sombre. "The pathologist reports that a second car went over her after she was dead."
"After she was dead?"
"Broke her femur."
"A second car?" echoed Hepple wonderingly. "Two cars ran over Mrs. Jenkins on this road..."
"Yes."
"And neither of them stopped?" That was the enormity to P. C. Hepple. A new crime in an irresponsible society, that"s what that was, something they"d have been ashamed to put on the Newgate Calendar.
"Two cars," said Sloan ominously, "or the first one on its way back."
Constable Hepple looked really worried. "I don"t like the sound of this at all, sir."
"No." Sloan looked at the village constable. "I don"t think I do either." He examined the road again. "Now, tell me this-just supposing that it was the same car that hit her both times..."
"Yes, sir?" Clearly Hepple didn"t like considering anything of the sort.
"Where would he have been able to turn?" This was where really detailed local knowledge came into its own.
"If he"d wanted to stay on the metalled road, sir, he"d have had to go quite a way. There"s no road junction before Belling and this road is too narrow for a really big car to turn in. But if he"d settled for a gateway or the like..."
"Yes?"
"Then Shire Oak Farm is the first one you"d come to beyond the houses. The Thorpes"s. After that there"s Peterson"s and then Smith"s..."
Inspector Sloan sent Crosby off to search for tyre prints. "It"s probably too late, but it"s worth a look." Then he asked Constable Hepple to tell him what he knew about the late Mrs. Grace Jenkins of Boundary Cottage.
"Known her for a long time, sir, and always very pleasant when we met." Thinking this might be misconstrued he added hastily, "Never in the course of duty, mind you, sir. I never had occasion to speak to her in the course of duty. A quiet lady. Kept herself to herself, if you know what I mean."
Sloan knew and wasn"t pleased with the knowledge. Not the easiest sort of person to find out about.
"Tuesday," he said. "Did you find out anything about what she"d been doing on Tuesday?"
"She was away from Larking all day," replied Hepple promptly, "that"s all I know. She went off on the early bus- the one that gets people into Berebury in time for work. And she came back on the last one. Two Larking people got off at the same time. Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Callows."
"Do we-does anyone-know how she spent the day?"
"Not yet, sir. They-Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Callows-had been shopping but if Mrs. Jenkins had, I don"t know what she"d done with her basket because it wasn"t here when I searched yesterday morning."
"I see."
"Must have been all of eight o"clock when she was killed," went on Hepple. "Allowing for the walk from the Post Office."
Sloan stroked his chin. "Eight o"clock fits in with what the pathologist says."
"Sir." The conscientious Hepple was still worried about something.
"Yes?"
"This second accident-was it straight after the first?"
"I don"t know. n.o.body knows."
"Oh, I see, sir, thank you."
"We only know," said Sloan, "that she was killed outright by the first one, and that after it another car ran over her."
Hepple had scarcely finished shaking his head over this before Crosby was back.
"Didn"t have to go very far, sir."
"How far?"
"He-whoever he was-turned in the first farm gateway..."