"There's one thing anyway…"
"Yes, miss?"
"I'm practically certain of a place in any college team you care to mention."
"College team?" echoed Sloan, momentarily bewildered.
"There's always an A. N. Other there, you know," she said swiftly. And was gone.
"That's that," observed Crosby without enthusiasm as he and Inspector Sloan got back to the police station afterwards. "We've only got two weeks and we still don't know what sort of a car or where to look for the driver."
"One good thing though," said Sloan, determinedly cheerful. "From what the Coroner said everyone will think we're looking for a dangerous driver."
Crosby sniffed. "Needle in a haystack, more like. P. C. Hepple said to tell you there's nothing new at his end. He can't find anyone who saw or heard a car on Tuesday evening."
"No." Sloan was not altogether surprised. "No, I reckon whoever killed her sat and waited in the car-park of the pub and then just timed her walk from the bus stop to the bad corner."
"That's a bit chancy," objected Crosby. "She might not have been on that bus."
"I think," gently, "that he knew she was on it. The only real risk was that someone else from down the lane might have been on it too. But now I've seen how few houses there are there, I don't think that was anything to worry about" He pushed open his office door, and crossed over to his desk. There was a message lying there for him. "Hullo, the Army have answered. Read this, Crosby."
"Jenkins, C. E. Sergeant, the East Calleshires," read Crosby aloud. "Enlisted September, 1939, demobilised July, 1946. Address on enlistment…"
"Go on."
"Holly Tree Farm," said Crosby slowly, "Rooden Parva, near Calleford."
"The plot thickens," said Sloan rubbing his hands.
"That's what the girl told us, wasn't it, sir? Holly Tree Farm."
"That's right. She said she didn't know the second bit." He paused. "Get me the Calleford police…"
Sloan spoke to someone on duty there, waited an appreciable time while the listener looked something up and finally thanked him and replaced the receiver.
Crosby stood poised between the door and the desk. "Are we going there, sir?"
"Not straight. We're calling somewhere on the way. They've looked up the address. There's no one called Jenkins there now. Walsh is the name of the occupier." Sloan looked at his watch. "It's nearly twelve. Do you suppose Hirst nips out for a quick one before lunch?"
"Hirst?" said Crosby blankly.
"The General's man. We must know what's so sinister about the magic words Hocklington-Garwell."
Which was how Detective-Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby came to be enjoying a pint of beer at The Bull in Cullingoak shortly after half past twelve. The bar was comfortably full.
"He usually comes in for a few minutes," agreed the land-
lord on enquiry. "He's got the old gentleman, see. Got to give him his lunch at quarter past. Very particular about time, is the General. Same in the evening. He can't come out till he's got him settled for the night." He swept the two plainclothes-men with an appraising glance. "You friends of his?"
"Sort of," agreed Sloan non-committally.
The landlord leaned two massive elbows on the bar. "If it's money you're after you can collect it somewhere else. I'm not having anyone dunned in my house."
"No," said Sloan distantly. "We're not after money."
That's all right then," said the landlord.
Sloan allowed a suitable pause before asking, "Horses or dogs?"
The landlord swept up a couple of empty glasses from the bar with arms too brawny for such light work. "Horses. Nothing much—just the odd flutter—like they all do."
"Did he come in last night?"
"Hirst?" The landlord frowned. "Now you come to mention it, I don't think he did. Perhaps his old gentleman wanted him. He's not young, isn't the General."
"Quite," agreed Sloan. "What'll you have?"
It was nearly ten to one before Hirst appeared. He came in quietly, a newspaper—open at the sporting page—tucked under his arm. He looked a little younger in the pub than he had done in the General's house but not much. His shoes were polished to perfection and his hair neatly plastered down but he, like his master, was showing signs of advancing age. Sloan let him get his pint and sit down before he looked in his direction.
"I fear, Hirst, that I upset the General last night," he said.
Hirst looked up, recognised him and put down his glass with a hand that was not quite steady. "Yes, sir. That you did."
"It was quite accidental…"
"Proper upset, he was. I had quite a time with him last night after you'd gone, I can tell you."
"You did?" enquired Sloan, even more interested.
"Carrying on alarming he was till I got him to bed."
"Hirst, what was it we said that did it?"
"The General didn't say." He lifted his glass. "But he was upset all right."
"I was asking him something about the past," said Sloan carefully, watching Hirst's face. "Something I wanted to know about a woman who—I think—was called Grace Jenkins."
There was no reaction from Hirst.
"Do you know the name?" persisted Sloan.
"Can't say that I do." Reassured, he took another pull at his beer. "It's a common enough one."
"That's part of the trouble."
"I see."
"Garwell's not a common name," said Sloan conversationally.
"No," agreed Hirst. "There's not many of them about."
"And Hocklington-Garwell isn't common at all."
Hirst set his glass down with a clatter. "You mentioned Hocklington-Garwell to the General?"
"I did."
"You shouldn't have done that, sir," said Hirst reproachfully.
"This woman Jenkins told her daughter that she used to be nursemaid to the family."
"No wonder the General was so upset. In fact, what with her ladyship being dead, I should say it would have upset the General more than anything else would have done."
"It did," agreed Sloan briefly, "but why?"
Hirst sucked his teeth. "Begging your pardon, Mr. Sloan, sir, I should have said it was all over and done with long before your time."
"What," cried Sloan in exasperation, "was all over and done with before my time?"
"That explains why the General was so upset about your being a detective, sir, if you'll forgive my mentioning it."
Sloan, who had been a detective for at least ten years without ever before feeling the fact to be unmentionable, looked at the faded gentleman's gentleman and said he would forgive him.
"I kept on telling him," said Hirst, "that it was all over and done with." He took another sip of beer. "But it wasn't any good. I had to get the doctor to him this morning, you know."
"Hirst," said Sloan dangerously, "I need to know exactly what it was that was over and done with before my time and I need to know now."
"The Hocklington-Garwell business. Before the last war, it was. And she is dead now, God rest her soul, so why drag it up again?"
"Who is dead?" Sloan was hanging on to his temper with an effort. A great effort.
"Her ladyship, like I told you. And Major Hocklington, too, for all I know."
"Hirst, I think I am beginning to see daylight. Hocklington and Garwell are two different people, aren't they?"
"That's right, sir. Like I said. There's the General who you saw yesterday and then there was Major Hocklington—only it's all a long time ago now, sir, so can't you let the whole business alone?"
"Not as easily as you might think, Hirst."
"For the sake of the General, sir…"
"Am I to understand, Hirst, that Lady Garwell and this Major Hocklington had an affair?"
Hirst plunged his face into the pint glass as far as it would go and was understood to say that that was about the long and the short of it.
Detective-Inspector Sloan let out a great shout of laughter.