Free Henrietta Who? by Catherine Aird Page A

should say that—er—steps have been taken to remove the owner’s name from this one.”
    â€œWould you, sir?” Sloan became extremely alert.
    â€œThe back is almost smooth—but not quite.”
    â€œI understand, sir. You’ve been most helpful. There’ll be an explanation, of course, but in the meantime perhaps you would be kind enough to keep them under lock and key until I get to you. I daresay,” he added heavily, “there will be rhyme to it as well as reason. If you know what I mean, sir.”
    â€œIndeed, yes,” affirmed Mr. Meyton. “There are, of course, matters which are properly mysterious to us in the religious sense but—er—finite matters are always …”
    â€œNo, Inspector,” Henrietta shook her head. “I can’t tell you anything more than that because I don’t know anything more.”
    â€œI see, miss. Thank you.” Sloan and Crosby were back in the parlor of Boundary Cottage, sitting where they had been sitting the day before. Then, Henrietta had looked as if she hadn’t slept much the previous night.
    Now she looked as if she hadn’t slept at all.
    â€œThe rector,” she went on wearily, “just said that they weren’t the right medals for the photograph.”
    â€œYes, miss. He rang me.”
    â€œHe took them away.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œInspector …”
    â€œYes, miss?”
    â€œWhy weren’t they taken on Tuesday?”
    â€œOn Tuesday, miss?”
    â€œBy whoever broke into the bureau.”
    â€œI couldn’t say, miss.”
    â€œThey must have seen them. They weren’t locked up in their cases or anything.”
    â€œNo.” He cleared his throat and said cautiously, “If they’d gone then, of course, you would have missed them.”
    â€œNaturally.”
    â€œWell, that—their absence—might have served to call your—call our attention to—er—any irregularities in the situation between you and your—er—parents.” Sloan felt himself going a bit hot under the collar. It wasn’t a sensation he was accustomed to. “I don’t think it is generally appreciated that the—er—fact of childlessness is—er—established at a routine post-mortem.”
    He hadn’t appreciated it himself, actually.
    Until yesterday.
    To his relief Henrietta smiled wanly and said, “I see.”
    â€œI mean,” expanded Sloan, “the chances of your discovering that they were the wrong medals …”
    â€œWrong?” she said swiftly.
    â€œWrong for the photograph.”
    â€œGo on, Inspector.” Warily.
    â€œThe chances of them being handled by anyone knowing quite as much about the subject as Mr. Meyton were really very slight.”
    Since putting down the telephone Sloan had sent Crosby to check up on the rector’s standing as an historian and found it high. Particularly in the field of military history.
    â€œInspector, are you trying to tell me that someone has been unlucky?”
    â€œThat’s one way of looking at it, miss. But for the accident of the rector seeing them you might never have known.”
    â€œKnown what?” she said with a sigh. “What exactly does it mean we know now that we didn’t know before?”
    â€œThat the medals are significant,” said Sloan promptly.
    She looked up. “Do you think so, Inspector?”
    â€œI do, miss, though I don’t know what of just yet. Give us a little time.” He hesitated and then said, “I think we may be going to find the answer to a lot of questions in the past.”
    She nodded. “Twenty-one years ago.”
    â€œWhy then?”
    â€œI’ll be twenty-one next month. At least I think I will be if my mother …” she corrected herself painfully, “if what I’ve been told is correct.”
    â€œTwenty-one?” Sloan frowned. “That