Convent on Styx (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Which day would that have been?”

  “That same day. Well, I suppose I should say the evening before. She came into the kitchen with her supper-tray—to wash up her own things, as usual—and said, ‘Oh, Sister, I’ve had a little accident. I suppose I shall have to pay.’ I looked at the pieces she showed me and then I looked in my book because, of course, they don’t have to pay unless they wish to. It is a matter of conscience.”

  “Yes, yes. And that was the last you saw of her, so far as you remember?”

  “Yes. I suppose she went back to the parlour or to her own room after that, but I don’t know for certain where she went because Sister Mary Hilary and Sister Mary Wolstan were going to be at second tables and I had to put their supper ready for them. They were working late over at school, you see, so they did not have supper with the rest of us, and it had been Sister Mary Fabian’s turn on the washing-up rota, but Sister is . . .”

  “Yes, thank you, Sister. You may stand down. Call Doctor Catto.”

  The doctor was a large, slightly gorilla-like young man who looked what he was, prop forward in the county rugby fifteen. He took the oath in a hushed voice as though he was afraid, if he spoke in his natural tones, of bringing plaster down from the courtroom ceiling; then replied to the coroner’s questions.

  He had been called to the convent at breakfast time and had seen the body at about a quarter to nine.

  “You had no doubt as to the cause of death?”

  “None at all; although, of course, a post-mortem examination of a more detailed kind was carried out later. Deceased had been drowned.” He proceeded to give particulars.

  “Were there any signs of injury?”

  “None. There was some post-mortem staining, as one would expect, but no wounds or contusions.”

  “Can you estimate the probable time of death?”

  “Not with accuracy, but I should put it at between nine o’clock and midnight. That is to say, my colleague and I, who carried out the autopsy, calculate that death had taken place some nine to twelve hours before I made my first inspection of the body, but that is only a rough estimate.”

  “You allowed, of course, for the fact that the body had been found lying in water? That would make a difference, would it not?”

  “It would mean that the body cooled a good deal more rapidly than would have been the case if death had taken place on land or in front of a fire or on a very hot day, of course.”

  “How was the body clad?”

  “Very oddly, unless one understands old ladies of a certain class. She was wearing a woollen, long-sleeved vest, her nightdress, her stockings, and a cardigan.”

  “Did you deduce anything from this miscellaneous collection of garments?”

  “Only that they probably formed her usual sleeping gear. After all, autumn is upon us and old ladies feel the cold, especially in bed.”

  “So how do you think she came to be found drowned, Doctor?”

  “I think she had walked in her sleep, although it is difficult to understand, if that were so, why the shock of falling into the water did not wake her.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. Call Inspector Cramond. Now, Inspector, you were called, together with Doctor Catto, as soon as the body was found. No doubt you examined the bank of the pond?”

  “Certainly we did, sir.”

  “You have heard the doctor’s theory that the deceased may have been walking in her sleep when she fell into the pond and was drowned. Do your findings substantiate that premise?”

  “With respect, sir, I agree and I don’t agree. I agree that if the poor old lady had been walking in her sleep, the sudden immersion when she stumbled into the pond would have woke her up and she would have extricated herself without difficulty, but that’s why I don’t see how she could have been walking in her sleep. Unless she was set upon, I don’t see how she could have drowned, sir, but there are difficulties about that.”

  “Oh?” said the coroner. “So you visualise a struggle between the deceased and an assailant, do you?”

  “Not without more evidence than we’ve got, sir. There were no marks of violence, as the doctor has told the court.”

  “Were there any signs of a struggle having taken place on the verge of the pond?”

  “It isn’t possible to say, sir, one way or the other.”

  “Did you look for such signs?”

  “We looked for anything which might help, sir, but the sides of the pond were muddy and wet where Quince had dragged her out of the water and his footprints had roughed up the mud. We compared the boots he said he was wearing with such prints as were discernible, but others had been beside the pond, no doubt. There’s a path goes right past it just there.”

  “I think Quince had better be recalled,” said the coroner. Tom, reminded that he was still under oath, replied to the coroner’s question:

  “I’m sorry if I done anything wrong, sir. My only idea was to pull her out and see if there wasn’t something I could do for the poor soul in case she wasn’t yet quite gone. She was dressed like the doctor said, but her clothes, sir, was all waterlogged. Her feet was just resting on the bank, sir, and she was that weighty, being dead and helpless with it, as I had to wrestle hard, as you might say, sir, to drag her out so’s I could get to work and give her the kiss of life, and all that. Also I might say, sir . . .”

  “I see. Well, it appears that you did your best and, of course, there seems no valid or sufficient reason to suspect foul play. Recall Doctor Catto . . . Now, Doctor, would your post-mortem examination have revealed whether the deceased had taken drugs before she was drowned? The fact that the water does not seem to have woken her up prompts me to ask the question.”

  “She had not taken anything of that kind, so far as I know, but some drugs leave little trace,” replied Catto.

  “I am not referring to what are known, I believe, as ‘hard’ drugs. I mean such things as aspirin tablets, tranquillisers (so-called), and that kind of thing.”

  “There was no trace of anything of the sort. I may add that she had not been under the influence of alcohol, either, so far as we could discover. Of course, a sudden attack of giddiness or a slip could have caused the fall and, as you have heard, a well-worn path skirts the pond just there; but, even if she was overcome by vertigo, I should have thought the shock of the cold water would have revived her.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. Call Jane Wilks.”

  Mrs. Wilks was thin and small. She had a shrewish little face and toffee-coloured eyes that looked anywhere but at the person she was addressing. She took the oath in aggressive tones and looked past the coroner as she agreed to her name and address.

  “Now, Mrs. Wilks,” said the coroner, “you used to live at the Convent of the Companions of the Poor, I believe?”

  “That’s right. Seven years.”

  “While you were there you knew the deceased, Miss Lipscombe, did you not?”

  “Yes, the poor dear. Great friends we were.”

  “Were you in the habit of going out into the grounds at night? You yourself, I mean.”

  “What would I want to do that for?”

  “Please answer my question.”

  “Well, not to say the grounds exactly.”

  “Where, then?”

  “Well, how would you like to be locked in at half-past seven in the winter, half-past eight in the summer, like a lot of convicts?”

  “That is beside the point, Mrs. Wilks. I asked you where you went when you left the convent after lock-up.”

  “If you must know, I used to go—only sometimes, mind you; I never made a habit of it, like some. Couldn’t afford it, for one thing, our pensions being confiscated, as you might say, and us only getting a bit of pocket money like so many kids—well, I used to sneak out and go down to the village hall to play bingo. Well, I mean, you must have some relaxation, mustn’t you?”

  “There is no need for you to excuse yourself to me, Mrs. Wilks. I am sure the court quite understands th
at from time to time you liked to have, as it were, a little flutter. You complained just now of the early hours kept by the convent. The doors were locked, you say. How did you get out? Was it a simple matter of drawing the bolts and turning the key?”

  “No, it wasn’t. Too noisy, and the bolts too stiff for my rheumatic fingers.”

  “Would the Sisters have objected to your going down to the village to play bingo?”

  “I don’t know, because I never asked. What I didn’t want was for Lily Lipscombe or Maria Polkinghorne to know where I went, it being no business of theirs how I used my bit of money. If you don’t speculate, you can’t accumulate. That’s a quotation my poor late husband always had on his lips, God rest his soul.”

  “So you found some means of leaving the convent after lock-up without using the front door. Will you tell the court what it was?”

  “It’s no business of theirs, is it?”

  “I think it is. We have to establish,” said the coroner, with exemplary patience, “whether Miss Lipscombe could have used the same means of egress.”

  “She could have, if she’d known of it, but she didn’t know. The downstairs windows were barred, on account our rooms used to be the boarding school dormitories, but I found out by accident that the whole set of bars outside my window lifted out. It was for air raids in the war or in case of fire, I suppose.”

  “So you got out of the window and came back again by the same means when your bingo session was over?”

  “That’s right. It’s only a step to the ground.”

  “Now, Mrs. Wilks, that window opens on to the convent car-park. (Let the jury see a plan of the grounds, please.) But the police have informed me that the double gates to the car-park are always locked at night. How, then, did you reach the village? I assume that you did not scale the locked gates?”

  “The bingo was only on in the autumn and winter, and I used to wait until it was dark, or darkish, so that I wouldn’t be seen when I went out. You had to walk over to the school car-park to reach the street, you see, and that meant crossing the grounds. The school car-park isn’t locked, so that’s the way I went.”

  “Passing by the large pond?”

  “Yes, if you kept to the path.”

  “Did you not keep to the path?”

  “Yes, if it was dark and my torch was working. Moonlight nights I cut across the school field without going near the pond. It was quicker.”

  “Are you sure that you never took Miss Lipscombe with you, or shared with her the secret of your escape route?”

  “Quite sure. She hadn’t the money for bingo. Besides, I couldn’t trust her.”

  “Not to betray the existence of the outlet, I suppose. Well,” the coroner looked at the jury, “that explains how Miss Lipscombe could have made her way to the pond.”

  “Only if she knew about the bars, and she didn’t know,” said the witness. “I’m sure she didn’t know.” She had raised her voice and spoken with emphasis.

  “Oh, yes, she did,” interjected Tom Quince.

  “Recall that witness,” said the coroner. “Mrs. Wilks, you may stand down. Now, my man, what makes you so sure that Miss Lipscombe knew about those loose bars?”

  “Simple, sir. She asked me to have ’em cemented back in.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Claimed she was nervous. Said if you could get out that way, somebody could get in.”

  “She said that, did she? Had she any reason to suppose that anybody would wish to get in?”

  “She was one of these old-fashioned old maids, sir—maiden ladies, I should say. You know what they’re like, sir. Burglars-under-the-bedders is my name for ’em, asking your pardon if I speaks out of turn, sir.”

  “And did you fix the bars as she requested?”

  “No, sir. I couldn’t do nothing about it without I got permission of Sister St. Elmo and I never thought she’d agree, being the window was a fire precaution, but I believe she did think about it. The old party—that is to say, the deceased, sir—well, it wasn’t even her room. She changed over into it for a bit, but she soon changed back again when she found out about them bars, so she knowed about ’em all right, sir.”

  “Well,” said the coroner, “I think, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard enough evidence to allow you to come to a conclusion. The deceased knew of this means of egress; she must have used it on the night of her death; she had suffered no physical injury and apparently was under no mental stress. It would be easy enough for her to have stumbled or tripped or slipped as she was passing the pond, or she may have been overcome by an attack of faintness or giddiness. I shall not dictate your verdict, although I have power to override it. Will you please retire?”

  “We don’t need to retire. We’re all agreed, sir,” said the foreman, “as deceased come to her death by misadventure or, as you might say, by accident while she was a-walking in her sleep.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Fell or Was Pushed?

  “What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

  —Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.”

  William Shakespeare

  “Accidental death, my foot!” said Inspector Cramond disgustedly. “It was a clever move to dig up that Mrs. Wilks. Wonder who thought of doing that? Sister St. Elmo, for my money. Half Maltese, you know. They’re always devious.”

  “Well, from the point of view of the convent, a verdict of accidental death is greatly to be preferred to one of murder or suicide, I suppose,” said Dame Beatrice. “No verdict can bring the dead to life again, in any case.”

  “So you’re giving up and going home, ma’am, are you? I was rather hoping you would be staying on and holding a watching brief for a bit.”

  “I hardly think I should be an honoured guest. There is only one circumstance that could justify my continued presence in the convent.”

  “What, ma’am, would that be? Tell me, and I’ll swing it if I can.”

  “Oh, dear me, no, Inspector! That would never do. I was summoned here to discover the identity of a writer of anonymous letters.”

  “I thought we were agreed who that was, ma’am. To my mind, the damaged Family Bible settled it past a doubt.”

  “Yes,” said Dame Beatrice, “I know. Suppose a spate of anonymous letters were to break out again, though?”

  “You mean somebody might have tumbled to the fact, believe it or not, that there could be a bit of fun in writing them?”

  “Well, I suppose there must be, in a perverted kind of way, a bit of fun, as you put it.”

  “Same like sadism, I reckon, if you’ve the stomach for that kind of thing. You don’t anticipate that anything of the sort will happen, though, do you? All the same, ma’am, can I take it that you would stay on, if you had any kind of excuse?”

  “Certainly. I am filled with the kind of curiosity that killed the cat. I am convinced that Miss Lipscombe was murdered and I’d like to be able to prove it.”

  “I wouldn’t care to think you were sticking your neck out, ma’am.”

  “Oh, I am not a favourite cat, Inspector. I am most unlikely to be ‘drowned in a tub of gold fishes,’ let alone in a remarkably murky pond. By the way, I noticed that you did not refer at the inquest to the finding of that Family Bible in the pond.”

  “Reasons for that, ma’am. The inquest was into Miss Lipscombe’s death, not into her activities before she died.”

  “But, in your mind and mine, the two are so closely connected as to be inseparable, surely?”

  “If I’d told about the Bible and it had been produced in court, the verdict would have been the same, ma’am. The jury would have said, in fact, that it meant, more than ever, her death was accidental. They’d have said that, with such a heavy chunk of stuff like that to chuck into the pond, she was almost bound to slip on the mud and fall in.”

  “True, I think, except that we know she got Mr. Chassett to dispose of the Bible.”

  “Well, I’m not prepare
d to leave matters as they are, ma’am.”

  “What do you propose to do?”

  “I’m going to give all those at the school and the convent who say they didn’t get one of those poison-pen letters a right going over.”

  “Including the elderly Sister Ignatius?”

  “She’s old, but I’m told she’s pretty fly, ma’am.”

  “There are three people at the convent who know pretty well all that goes on,” said the inspector, “barring the deceased, who, I’m told, knew more than the other three put together, and those are Sister Wolstan for the school, Sister Marcellus (the quacking old duck) for the convent, and Tom Quince for both convent and school.”

  “And Sister Marcellus did not receive one of those letters.”

  “A bit odd, that, when you come to think of it. I mean, I can understand about the very old lady. She cuts no ice nowadays, I suppose, so there was no point in gunning for her. All the same, I should have thought she’d have got one. These anonymous devils are very cruel.”

  “I am prepared to believe that the writer of the letters was superstitious rather than truly religious, although she was a member of the Church.”

  “I don’t follow you, ma’am.”

  “A superstitious woman brought up as a Catholic of the old-fashioned kind might think twice before sending an abusive letter to somebody who was thought to be nearing the gates of heaven, don’t you think?”

  The inspector shook his head doubtfully.

  “I was brought up a Methodist,” he said, “and I can’t say I’m sorry for it, ma’am.”

  “Of course, the most interesting and significant non-receivers of letters are the three men teachers, don’t you think?” suggested Dame Beatrice.

  “No, I don’t find that important, ma’am. What these poison-pens want is to rattle people and upset them. Men don’t fall for it the way women do.”

  “Mr. Chassett struck me as a highly-strung, unhappy young man.”

  “Father was in the IRA, ma’am, and was put away for bomb outrages in Liverpool. Chassett’s mother took her maiden name and the boy followed suit. They only came back to these parts a couple of years ago. The father fell off a wall trying to escape from quod and broke his neck. The Liverpool police followed up the wife and son and passed the dope on to our County police. We know all about Ronald Chassett, ma’am. At one time he was booked to enter a seminary to train for a priest, but either they changed their minds about taking on the son of a murderer—because that’s what ‘Paddy’ was—or else the lad himself decided against it. The mother used to teach here, I’m told, and that’s why the nuns gave the boy a job.”