'No? Perhaps, Sloan, I've been in the Force too long…'
'I think this secret must have been of a matrimonial nature.'
The Superintendent brightened at once. 'Then perhaps it was Mr. Jenkins who had the record.'
'I'll check on that naturally, sir, but there is another possibility.'
'There are lots of possibilities.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Not all of them to do with us.'
'No, sir. This could well be just a family matter.'
'Most of our cases,' the Superintendent reminded him tartly, doing one of his famous smart verbal about- turns, 'are family matters.'
'Yes, sir.' He paused. 'Constable Hepple doesn't know anything about them not being mother and daughter and he's been living out that way for donkey's years.'
'A good man, Hepple,' conceded Leeyes. 'Knows all the gossip. If there's much crime in the south of Calleshire he never tells us.'
This might not have been Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary's view of what constituted a good policeman but the Superintendent was not a man who looked for work.
'What are you going to do about it?' he asked Sloan.
'See the girl for a start—and the bureau.'
'She could be lying.' Leeyes tapped Traffic Division's file. 'According to Dr. Dabbe she is.'
'Her mother could have lied to her…'
'A by-blow of the father's,' repeated the Superintendent firmly, 'for sure, brought up as her own. Some women will swallow anything.'
'Perhaps,' said Sloan cautiously. 'But just suppose she isn't Grace Edith Jenkins?'
Superintendent Leeyes looked quite attentive at last. 'I don't believe we've had a case of personation in the county for all of twenty years.'
Young Thorpe had called at Boundary Cottage to see if Henrietta needed anything, and to say how sorry he was.
'It is nice of you, Bill,' she said sincerely, 'but I'm quite all right.'
He stood awkwardly in the doorway, almost filling it with his square shoulders. He wasn't all that young either but being Mr. Thorpe of Shire Oak Farm's son he was destined to be known as young Thorpe for many years yet.
'I liked your mother, you know,' he said, 'in spite of everything.'
'I know you did, Bill,' Henrietta said quickly.
'She was probably right to make us wait. First I was away at the Agricultural College and then with her being so keen on your going away too.'
Henrietta nodded. 'She really minded about that, didn't she?'
'Some people just feel that way about education,' said Bill Thorpe seriously. 'My father's the same. He couldn't go to college himself but he made me. He's right, I suppose. You learn—well, it's not exactly how much you learn but the reasons behind things.'
'And it wasn't very long, was it?'
He smiled wanly. 'It seemed a long time.'
'You never wrote.'
'Neither did you,' returned Bill.
'We promised not to. I thought it might make things easier.'
'Did it?'
Henrietta shook her head. 'No.'
'Nor for me.' He looked at her for a minute, then, 'Mother said to come to the farm to sleep if you wanted.'
'Will you say thank you? There's nothing I'd like more but,' she grimaced, 'I think if I once didn't stay here on my own I'd never get back to doing it again. She'll understand, I know.'
Thorpe nodded. 'We're a bit out of the way, too, at the farm. There'll be a lot to be done here I expect.'
'It's not that but,' she pushed her hair back vaguely, 'there seem to be people coming all the time. The Rector's coming down to talk to me about the funeral and Mr. Hepple said he'd be back again about the inquest.' She gave a shaky half-laugh. 'I'd no idea dying was such a—well—complicated business.'
'No,'agreed Thorpe soberly. He allowed a decent interval to elapse before he said, 'Any news of the car?'
'What car—oh, that car? No, Bill, they haven't said anything to me about it yet.'
Henrietta thought that Inspector Sloan and Constable Crosby had come from the Berebury C.I.D. solely to examine her mother's bureau for fingerprints.
'It's in the front room,' she said, leading the way. 'I haven't touched it.'
Sloan obligingly directed Crosby to perform this routine procedure while he talked to Henrietta.
'Nothing missing from the rest of the house, miss?'
'Not that I know of, Inspector. It all looks all right to me.' She paused. 'It's such an odd thing to happen, isn't it?'
'Yes,' said Sloan simply.
'I mean, why should someone want to break in here…'
'Not break in, miss. P.C. Hepple said all the doors and windows were intact. He found the place quite well locked up really. Whoever got in here came in by the door. The front door.'
('The back one's bolted as well as the Tower of London,'was what Hepple had said.)
'The front door,' he repeated.
'That's worse,' said Henrietta.
'Your mother, miss, would she have left a key with anyone?'
'No.' Henrietta considered this. 'I'm sure she wouldn't. Besides there were only two keys. There was one in her handbag and one hanging on a hook in the kitchen. That's the one I use when I'm at home.'
'I see.'
Henrietta shivered suddenly. 'I don't like to think of someone coming in here…'
'No, miss.'
'… with a key.'
Sloan wasn't exactly enamoured of the idea either. It left the girl in the state the insurance companies called being 'at risk.'
'Now, miss, I think we can open the bureau.'
Crosby had finished his dusting operations. He stood back and said briefly, 'Gloves.'
Sloan was not surprised.
'Was it usually kept locked?' he asked Henrietta.
'Always.'
'Are you familiar with its contents?'
'Not really. My mother kept her papers there. I couldn't say if they are all there or not.'
Sloan eased back the flap. Everything was neatly pigeonholed. Either no one had been through the bureau or they had done it conscious that they would be undisturbed. Sloan pulled out the first bundle of papers.
'Housekeeping accounts,' he said, glancing rapidly through them. Grace Jenkins and her alleged daughter had lived modestly enough.
'That's right,' said Henrietta. 'You'll find her cheque book there too.'
Sloan took a quick look at the Bank's name for future reference. It was at a Berebury Branch. He put the tidily docketed receipts back and took out the next bundle. It brought an immediate flush to Henrietta's cheeks.
'I'd no idea she kept those.'
Sloan looked down at a schoolgirl's writing.
'My letters to her,' she said in a choked voice, 'and my school reports.'
If this was acting, thought Sloan, it was good acting.
