Henrietta Who? Read Free

Jenkins’s handbag, knocked out of her hand and flung into the long grass by the roadside. He took charge of this and continued his search but found nothing else. The letter inside from Henrietta having given her address he telephoned this and his report to his headquarters at Berebury, leaving to them the business of finding her and telling her the bad news.
    He himself went back to the scene of the accident and took a plaster cast of the tire mark. He then proceeded—as he would have said himself—to Boundary Cottage. He checked that it was safely locked—it was—and then went on to visit the other five cottages. Three of these were in a short row and two others and Boundary Cottage were detached, standing in their own not inconsiderable gardens.
    There was no reply from Mulberry Cottage which was Boundary Cottage’s nearest neighbor—some people called Carter lived there—but all the occupants of the others and of the two other farms besides the Thorpes said the same thing. They had had no visitors the previous evening. They had heard and seen nothing.
    Hepple went home and wrote out a second, slightly fuller report, and spent part of his afternoon in Larking village trying to establish who had been the last person to see Mrs. Jenkins alive.
    It was because of his careful checking over of Boundary Cottage that he was so surprised to have a telephone call from Henrietta the next morning.
    â€œSomeone’s been in the house,” she said flatly.
    â€œHave they, miss? What makes you think that?”
    â€œIn the front room …”
    â€œYes?” He had his notebook ready.
    â€œThere’s a bureau. You know the sort of thing—you can write at it but it’s not exactly a desk …”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œIt’s been broken into. Someone’s prised the flap part open—they’ve damaged the wood.”
    â€œWhen did you discover this, miss?”
    Henrietta looked at her watch. It was just after ten o’clock in the morning. “About ten minutes ago. I came straight out to ring you.”
    â€œThis damage, miss, you’d say it was someone trying to get inside without a key?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    He hesitated. “It couldn’t have been your mother, miss? I mean, if she had lost her own key and needed to get in there quickly for something …”
    â€œShe’d never have spoilt it like this,” retorted Henrietta quickly. “Besides she wasn’t the sort of person who lost keys.”
    â€œYes.” Hepple knew what she meant. His own impression of Mrs. Jenkins was of a neat quiet lady. Law-abiding to a degree.
    â€œMoreover,” went on Henrietta, “if she had had to do something like that I’m sure she’d have told me in her letter.”
    P. C. Hepple came back to the question of time.
    â€œWhen?” repeated Henrietta vaguely. “I don’t know when.”
    â€œYesterday, miss. You came back yesterday.”
    â€œThat’s right. They brought me home from Berebury in a police car afterwards …”
    â€œAbout what time would that have been, miss?”
    But time hadn’t meant anything to Henrietta yesterday.
    â€œIt was dark. I don’t know when exactly.”
    â€œWas the bureau damaged then?” persisted Hepple.
    â€œI don’t know. I didn’t go into the front room at all last night. I’ve just been in there now.”
    â€œThe cottage was all locked up just gone twelve o’clock yesterday morning,” said Hepple, “because I went along myself then to check. There were no signs of breaking and entering then, miss.”
    â€œThere aren’t any now,” said Henrietta tersely. “Just the bureau. That’s the only thing that’s wrong.”
    With which, when he got there, P. C. Hepple was forced to agree.
    â€œWindows and doors all all right,” he said. “Unless they had a key, no