First Impression II: At Second Glance

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Jane Marple Continues Her Search

Chapter Twenty-Nine — In which Jane Marple Continues Her Search (and gets distracted by a boy)

For the next week, I barely talked to Adrian. We didn't have many classes in common and now that he was no longer in student council, we didn't see each other much. Also, Adrian was currently the biggest topic on campus after news of the Hamilton bank and of his resignation from the student council broke. So he tended to disappear when not in class.

On my part, I was rather occupied with the Jenkins mystery as well. I told Danielle what I had found but we agreed that it was too little to jump to any conclusions. Still, I was not deterred.

I assumed that it was more likely that Richard Jenkins would hide his things in a place he was familiar with. Looking at the map of the school during the years the Jenkinses were in school, I realised that the Thornwell mansion was the only building remaining from that time. The last big renovation of the school occurred in 2003. It was finished in January 2004. If I assumed that Elizabeth Jenkins had gone back to Thornwell in April 2004 and found what Richard Jenkins had left, this meant that the renovations had not touched his hiding place. It was unlikely that Richard Jenkins would leave his stuff in a place under construction anyway.

Therefore, I could narrow the search to the central wing of the Thornwell mansion which was untouched during the 2003 renovation. It was now the administrative block of the school and contained mostly staff offices and meeting rooms. It didn't seem likely that Richard Jenkins would be able to access offices and meeting rooms were used too frequently to be a safe hiding spot. This left the old drawing rooms of the mansion on the bottom floor that were used to host special guests and alumni and the trophy room on the top floor. I borrowed the key (being the student council secretary had its privileges) and Danielle and I had searched the rooms but to no avail. Today, I was going to search the trophy room (on my own though; Danielle had volleyball practice).

The trophy room was not locked. It was a large spacious room lined with oak cabinets filled with Thornwell trophies dating from its establishment. They kept the older ones here, with the newer ones proudly displayed in the cabinets on the ground floor. It had been converted from the attic of the Thornwell mansion so it had sloping roofs and a large round window on the side facing the school gates.

It was a beautiful room. I walked down the rows of shelves leisurely, running my fingers along the wood, breathing in the smell of old polished wood, and listening to the floorboards squeak. I headed towards the shelves labeled with the years when Jenkins was at Thornwell. After a little more digging in the dusty archives, I had found that Richard and Elizabeth Jenkins had been a year apart in Thornwell. They had both in the debate club and had won Best Speaker in the inter-school annual debate competition.

The floorboard beneath me creaked loudly as I crouched down to look at the bottom shelf.

1985 Richard E. Jenkins Best Speaker.

1986 Elizabeth E. Sursette Best Speaker.

My fingers lingered over the glass. There was also a grainy photo of the debate team, hands slung over shoulders, faces smiling, frozen in the moment. I could make out Richard Jenkins in the front row and Elizabeth Jenkins in the back. For one moment, I felt that it was so, unfair. They had been so brilliant, and then, everything was gone. They had only been 36 when they died. I hadn't thought much about it before but 36 seemed very young. The average lifespan was at least 80. They hadn't even reached half. My fists clenched against the cool glass. It didn't seem fair.

"Hello."

I jumped and fell on my butt, heart pounding furiously.

"You scared me," I said. I recognised the voice. It was Adrian.