Part 18 (1/2)
Sloan glared. ”What's that? Oh, yes, that's a point.” He grunted and went on. ”Has-may have-fair hair and Grace Jenkins had fair hair which she took pains to dye the same colour as Henrietta's is interesting...”
”Yes, sir.”
”It's worse than drawing teeth, Crosby. Don't you have any ideas at all?”
”Yes, sir. But not about this,” he added hastily, not liking the look on Sloan's face.
”Has it occurred to you that there is one possibility that would account for it? That Cyril and Grace Jenkins were brother and sister...”
”No, sir,” replied Crosby truthfully. He thought for a minute and then said very, very cautiously, ”Where would the baby come in then?”
”I don't know.” Sloan turned back to the report. ”How did you get on otherwise?”
”No joy about where she'd been all day except that it wasn't in Berebury.”
”What?”
”I showed her photograph to the Inspector at the bus station. He thinks he saw her at the incoming unloading point about half five. Doesn't know what bus she got off...”
”Wait a minute,” said Sloan suspiciously. ”How does he remember? That was Tuesday. Today's Friday.”
”I wondered about that, too, sir, but it seems as if an old lady tripped and fell and this Grace Jenkins helped her up and dusted her down. That sort of thing. And then handed her over to the bus people.”
Sloan nodded. ”Go on.”
”It appears she stayed in the bus station until the Larking bus left at seven five. In the cafeteria most of the time. The waitress remembered her. Says she served her with...”
”Baked beans,” interposed Sloan neatly.
Crosby looked startled. ”That's right. At about...”
”Six o'clock,” supplied Sloan.
”How do you know, sir?”
”Not me.” Laconically. ”The pathologist. He said so. She ate them about two hours before death. That ties up with her being killed as she walked home from the last bus.”
”Wonderful, sir, isn't it, what they can do when they cut you up?”
”Yes,” said Sloan shortly.
Crosby turned back to his notebook. ”Wherever she'd been she didn't get to the bus station until after the five fifteen to Larking had left, otherwise she'd presumably have caught that.”
”Fair enough,” agreed Sloan. ”What came in after five fifand before she went into the cafeteria?”
”A great many buses,” said Crosby with feeling. ”It's about their busiest time of the day. I've got a list but I wouldn't know where to begin if it's a case of talking to conductors.”
”Return tickets?” murmured Sloan. ”They might help.”
Crosby looked doubtful. Sloan went back to the post-morexamination report.
”Was Happy Harry any help, sir?” ventured Crosby a little later.
”Inspector Harpe,” said Sloan distantly, ”has instigated the usual routine enquiries.”
”I see, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Suddenly Sloan tapped Dr. Dabbe's report. ”Get me the hospital, will you, Crosby? There's one thing I can ask the pathologist...”
He was put through to Dr. Dabbe's office without delay.
”About this Grace Jenkins, Doctor...”
”Yes?”
”I notice you've made a note of her blood group.”
”Routine, Inspector.”
”I know that, Doctor. What I was wondering is if the blood group could help us in other ways.”
”With the alleged daughter, you mean?” said Dabbe.
”Her alleged husband has turned up too,” said Sloan; and he explained about the sighting of Cyril Jenkins.
”Blood groups aren't a way of proving maternity or paternity. Only of disproving it.”
”I don't quite follow.”
”If the child has a different one then that is a factor in sustaining evidence that it is not the child of those particular people.”
”And if it is the same?”
”That narrows the field nicely.”
”How nicely?” guardedly.
”Usually to a round ten million or so people who could be its parents.”
”I see.” Sloan thought for a moment. ”We already know that Grace Jenkins is not the mother of Henrietta...”
”We do.”
”But if Cyril Jenkins is alive and is the father of Henrietta, then their blood groups would tie up, wouldn't they?”
A low rumble came down the telephone line. ”First, catch your hare...”
General Sir Eustace Garwell was at home and would see Inspector C. D. Sloan.
This news was conveyed to the waiting policemen by an elderly male retainer who had creaked to the door in answer to their ring. He was the fourth Garwell upon whom they had called since leaving the police station late that afternoon. The other three had numbered several Jenkins's among their acquaintance but not a Cyril Edgar nor a Grace and certainly not a Henrietta Eleanor Leslie. Nor did they look as if they could ever have had a hyphen in the family, let alone a Hocklington.