"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 pretence 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 foregathered 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 Jenmiss, 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 humour. This Wright business…"
"Yes?"
"I expect you've all heard the expression about Mr. Right coming along."
Henrietta coloured. "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 tothe 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 bash"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 probatook 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?"