Murder on the Home Front by Molly Lefebure Page B

time which must have elapsed since death.
    Mr. Greeno on his arrival set his men to searching the ground around Hankley Common ridge. Day in, day out, they searched.
    Bit by bit they collected clues. First they found the girl’s shoes, lying some distance apart from one another, and some way from the body’s burial place. Then a bag with a rosary in it was found near one of the shoes, close by a small stream where there was a military trip wire. Sixteen yards away was found a heavy birch stake. Clinging to this stake were a number of long blonde hairs.
    Later, in a small dell up the hillside above the stream, Joan Pearl Wolfe’s identity card was found, with a religious tract, and a document which was issued by the Canadian Army to men applying for permission to marry. There was also a green purse, an elephant charm, and a letter from Joan to a Canadian private called August Sangret, telling him she was pregnant by him and hoping he would marry her.
    Mr. Greeno learned that Joan, since July, had been living in the neighborhood in rough huts, or “wigwams,” which August Sangret had built for her, and where he had spent his leaves with her.
    A deserted cricket pavilion which had also been a favorite rendezvous for Joan and Sangret was visited by the detective. Inside, Joan had drawn and scribbled all over the walls. She had drawn a wild rose, writing under it, “Wild Rose of England for ever—September 1942.” And there was another sketch of a cabin, “My little gray home in the West.” And a prayer written in pencil:
    “O holy Virgin in the midst of all thy glory we implore thee not to forget the sorrows of this world…”
    There was also penciled the address of Private A. Sangret, of Canada, and the address of Joan’s mother in Kent.
    The girl, at one stage, it was discovered, had been admitted to a local hospital, where she kept a photograph of Sangret, her “fiancé,” on her bedside locker. From hospital she had written to tell him she was pregnant; pathetic letters explaining that the nuns at the convent where she had been brought up had taught her that an illegitimate baby was a terrible sin, but, she naïvely added, when she and Sangret were married and happy together with the baby everything would be all right.
    She bought layette patterns, and people who saw this girl-tramp in the woods in the weeks before she was murdered noticed she was knitting baby clothes…
    Chief Inspector Greeno now went to the nearby Canadian Army camp where Sangret was stationed. Sangret was a young man half French Canadian, half Cree Indian. He had recently asked his CO for a marriage application form, but had not returned it filled in. He admitted to Mr. Greeno that he had associated with Joan, but added he had not seen her since September 14, when she had failed to keep a date with him. He had reported her “disappearance” to his provost sergeant, saying, “If she should be found, and anything has happened to her, I don’t want to be mixed up in it.” He had told a friend that he had sent Joan home, as she had no clothes, and he told another friend that she was in hospital. These friends of Sangret admitted to Mr. Greeno that they thought Sangret’s behavior over Joan’s disappearance “very strange.” First he had said one thing, then he said another, and seemed very much on edge over the whole business.
    While Sangret was waiting in the guard room for this first interview with Mr. Greeno he excused himself and went to the washhouse. Nobody thought anything of it, at the time…
    Mr. Greeno, after this interview, came hurrying up to Guy’s. He arrived in a van, in the back of which he had what appeared to be a section of Hankley Common. There were furze and bracken, hummocks of grass, and a small tree. These were to be examined for bloodstains. There was, in addition, a Canadian Army blanket, and a battle dress, and the birch stake that had been found by the stream.
    Dr. Simpson and Mr. Greeno spread the blanket