Henrietta Who? Read Online Free PDF Page A

Henrietta.
    â€œNothing missing from the rest of the house, miss?”
    â€œNot 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?”
    â€œYes,” said Sloan simply.
    â€œI mean, why should someone want to break in here?”
    â€œNot 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.)
    â€œThe front door,” he repeated.
    â€œThat’s worse,” said Henrietta.
    â€œYour mother, miss, would she have left a key with anyone?”
    â€œNo.” 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.”
    â€œI see.”
    Henrietta shivered suddenly. “I don’t like to think of someone coming in here.”
    â€œNo, miss.”
    â€œWith a key.”
    Sloan wasn’t exactly enamored of the idea either. It left the girl in the state the insurance companies called being “at risk.”
    â€œNow, 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.
    â€œWas it usually kept locked?” he asked Henrietta.
    â€œAlways.”
    â€œAre you familiar with its contents?”
    â€œNot 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.
    â€œHousekeeping accounts,” he said, glancing rapidly through them. Grace Jenkins and her alleged daughter had lived modestly enough.
    â€œThat’s right,” said Henrietta. “You’ll find her checkbook 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.
    â€œI’d no idea she kept those.”
    Sloan looked down at a schoolgirl’s writing.
    â€œMy letters to her,” she said in a choked voice, “and my school reports.”
    If this was acting, thought Sloan, it was good acting.
    â€œMothers do.” He chose his words carefully. “Part of the treasury of parenthood, you might say. By the way, where did you go to school?”
    â€œHere in the village first, then Berebury High.”
    Sloan put the infant Henrietta’s literary efforts back in their place and took out the next bundle.
    â€œThese seem to be about the cottage.” He turned over a number of letters. “Fire insurance, rating assessment and so forth.”
    Sloan put them back but not before noting that all were quite definitely in the name of Mrs. G.E. Jenkins.
    â€œBoundary Cottage,” he said. “Did it belong to your mo—to Mrs. Jenkins?”
    â€œNo,” Henrietta shook her head. “To Mr. Hibbs at The Hall. It’s the last of the cottages on his estate. That’s why it’s called Boundary Cottage.”
    â€œCan you think of any reason why anyone would want to break in here?”
    She shook her head again. “I don’t think she kept anything valuable there. That’s why I can’t understand anyone wanting to go through it. There wasn’t anything to steal.”
    â€œIt doesn’t look,” he said cautiously, “as if, in fact, anything has been stolen.”
    She reached over and pointed out a little drawer. “If you