Convent on Styx (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “It also served as an exit for anybody who had some reason for not wishing to use the front door, I gather.”

  “Mrs. Wilks and Miss Lipscombe must both have used it at some time or other, it seems.”

  “So it may have been to Miss Lipscombe’s advantage that, after Mrs. Wilks’s departure, that room should remain unoccupied. But I am preventing Mr. Cartwright from telling his story.” Dame Beatrice sat back, folded her yellow claws in her lap, and fixed her sharp black eyes on the narrator.

  “Well, the thing happened,” said Cartwright, “on the first night after they had changed rooms. They are healthy, normal children and we have never had problems about sleeplessness, let alone bed wetting or other symptoms of disturbance, but on this particular night young Angela went into her sister’s room, woke her—at what time they cannot specify, but Cecilia thinks they had been in bed for some hours—and stated that she wanted to go to the lavatory.”

  “I had taken care that they should each be provided with a chamber pot in view of just such an emergency,” protested Sister St. Elmo.

  “We do not use them at home,” said Cartwright, “and it is the rarest thing in the world for either child to want to get up at night. At any rate, Angela asked her sister to go along with her to the only convenience they knew of in the convent, the one they were accustomed to visit just before going to bed.”

  “It was on the ground floor, I take it,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “It is near the door which opens on to the kitchen garden,” said the prioress, “and I believe Miss Lipscombe took exception to their using it. This was most unreasonable, since during the day they did as they had been instructed and used the school facilities. It was only first thing in the morning and last thing before bed that they were permitted the use of the lavatory in question.”

  “Be that as it may, and I’m sure you showed them every consideration, Sister,” said Cartwright, “but, anyway, down the stairs they crept . . .”

  “In the dark?” asked Dame Beatrice.

  “Oh, no, not entirely in the dark,” explained Sister St. Elmo. “We keep a low-powered bulb alight on the staircases—there are two—because we once had a Sister who walked in her sleep.”

  “If she was asleep when she walked, how would a light make her any safer?” asked Cartwright. “Oh, well, never mind. There may be some psychological explanation. However, my two crept down the stairs and made for the lavatory.”

  “The door is down a very short passage,” put in Sister St. Elmo, “near the foot of the stairs.”

  “Just so. It is necessary to understand that, in view of my story. The girls entered the passage and, while Angela was inside, her sister waited by the door. When Angela came out, Cecilia went in, having forbidden her sister to pull the chain for fear of waking the elderly ladies who, of course, were sleeping on the ground floor. When she came out, Angela told her she could hear somebody moving about. They spoke in whispers and then Cecilia peeped round the end of the little corridor to find out when the coast would be clear, for (she told us) they did not want to run into Miss Lipscombe who they knew resented their presence in the convent.

  “Angela whispered, ‘Suppose she wants to come here?’ So they edged their way out, and that brings me to the part of Cecilia’s story which I find hard to accept, but which she is convinced is a fact. She declares that it was not Miss Lipscombe or the other old lady whom they saw in the cloister, but a man carrying a lantern and another man who seemed to be carrying something bulkier. She declares that the lantern lit up the legs of their trousers. They were walking away from the children, so the two girls slipped away to the staircase and were soon back in bed.”

  “And neither mentioned the episode to anybody?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

  “Apparently they thought nothing of it. They supposed that the men were about some authorised task and, of course, they had no idea what time of night it was.”

  “So they do not know which way the men came in or where they went? I see. And they did not make any guess at their identity, since all they saw were their trouser-legs by lantern light?”

  “Of course no man had any authority to be in the convent,” said Sister St. Elmo. “I wish they had mentioned the matter to me. I should have instituted enquiries at once, as I need not tell you. Apparently, however, they thought no more of the matter until Cecilia heard of Miss Lipscombe’s death.”

  “Miss Lipscombe’s death,” repeated Dame Beatrice thoughtfully. “But why should the discovery of her body in a pond tie up, in Cecilia’s mind, with men in the cloister at night?”

  “I have no idea, but she seems to have brooded over the matter ever since she knew of the death and then (very sensibly, in my opinion) decided to confide in Father MacNicol outside the Confessional. She wondered whether the two men had desecrated the chapel and Miss Lipscombe knew of it.”

  “And he, equally sensibly, referred the matter to you. I wonder whether you would allow me to talk with your daughter?”

  “Do so, by all means,” said the tall father, “but I make one stipulation, Dame Beatrice. It must be at her home, not here.”

  “Oh, I agree. We do not want any association of ideas beyond what is absolutely necessary.”

  “Then we will expect you”—he produced a visiting card—“at some time tomorrow, Dame Beatrice. Perhaps you would care to come to tea. We have it at four on Sundays because of the six-thirty Mass. I could pick you up here at three-thirty, if you would like a lift.”

  “No, I think not, thank you, because that would mean somebody would have to bring me home. I have my car here and my man will find your house.” She tucked the visiting-card away and Cartwright took his leave.

  “What extra information do you expect to obtain from those children?” asked the prioress when he had gone.

  “None. I wish to confirm my impression of what their father has told us.”

  “What do you make of it so far?”

  “Nothing at all. I wonder what those men were after, that they invaded the convent that night? Did they enter the chapel?”

  “If they did, they disturbed nothing, neither was anything missing.”

  “Strange. Tell me about the very first letter you received.”

  “The very first? Oh!” The prioress looked startled. “I had completely overlooked the very first one,” she confessed. “It was quite unrelated to any of the others, in a way.”

  “You intrigue me. This, then, is a letter that, so far, you have not mentioned.”

  “Yes, indeed it is, but I cannot see that it has any bearing on the later letters. It was on a different subject entirely and was even, perhaps, well meant.”

  “You have not kept it, I gather?”

  “We kept none of the earliest ones.”

  “Please tell me about it. You mean it had nothing to do with the street accident to the child in the village?”

  “Nor to Mrs. Wilks’s having decided to leave us. It simply contained a warning that our woodwork shed was being used, possibly, for immoral purposes. Sister Hilary, whose province it is, had a word with the woodwork master and with our factotum, Quince, and no more was said on the matter. Personally, I think the writer of that particular letter was mistaken in thinking that the shed was being used as a place of assignation. I think a tramp was using it as a shelter.”

  “I see. Did you think Miss Lipscombe wrote that letter as well as the others?”

  “I did not trouble to think about it at all, but now that I know Mrs. Wilks used to break out of the convent after lock-up in order to go to the village to play bingo, I should not be surprised if she was the writer. She would have had to cross the playing field to get out of the grounds, you see, and could have seen a light in the shed, had there been one. She may even have approached the shed and peered in at a window.”

  “You do not think the woodwork master himself used the shed after hours to do some private work, I suppose?”

  “It could well have been so. At any rate, w
e heard no more about it.”

  “I should like to inspect the shed.”

  “Tomorrow is Sunday, so it will not be in use. Would that suit you? Quince has a key and so has Sister Hilary. Do you attach importance, then, to the letter?”

  “Well, it has its own interest.”

  “I am sorry it had so entirely slipped my mind.”

  “Can the shed be seen from Quince’s cottage?”

  “Yes, but not whether there is a light on at night, because the windows of the shed face away from Quince’s. Still, I believe that since the school was broken into he patrols the grounds after dark. He is a most faithful fellow and has our interests very much at heart.”

  The following day was Dame Beatrice’s first Sunday at the convent and the routine differed in various respects from that followed on the other days of the week, including Saturdays. Venturing at Saturday supper to enquire of Mrs. Polkinghorne what the procedure was likely to be on the morrow—“I am not a Catholic, you see, and I should not wish to outrage the conventions in any way”—she received a comprehensive reply.

  “For you, because you are hereje . . .”

  “No, I am not a heretic. I am agnóstica.”

  “Worse!” stated Mrs. Polkinghorne concisely. “Hereje, at least he have a religion. Agnóstica, she sit on the wall, no?”

  “Fence.”

  “So. Wall is more comfortable, I think.”

  “But, about the way we are expected to spend Sunday . . .”

  “You will do as you please. No rules here for visitors. The religiosas they rise early, chapel at half seven, then breakfast. Morning prayers and pious readings at nine, then they do what they like until noon hour, when prayers. Eat at twelve-thirty, all of them, no excuses, very ceremonioso, you understand.”

  “Very formal, yes.”

  “One o’clock until two, they amuse themselves.”

  “Dear me!”

  “I say something wrong?”

  “Not if you mean that it is their hour of recreation.”

  “So. They embroider, sew, read, make conversation.”

  “Ah, yes, I understand. And what do you do all this time?”

  “Breakfast with you at eight, then I do like the nuns, but lunch with you, not with them. Then devotional reading, walk in the garden, write to my son, who is sacerdote in South America—you understand?—and my daughter, who is religiosa in Bath.”

  “That all seems quite straightforward.”

  “So. Tea at four o’clock, the Sisters; also you and me. To prayers in the chapel at five-thirty. I go, too. Then comes the evening. It is the custom for the Sisters to go to la misa in town church. The car takes four and good parents come with cars and take the others, also me and, when they are here, Mrs. Wilks and Miss Lipscombe. Quince, he go on the bus. The same returning.”

  “So the convent is completely empty for how long?”

  “Perhaps two hours.”

  “I see. And then?”

  “We come back, same like we go. Cold supper, then amuse from eight to nine. Night prayers after, then bedtime, and so another Sunday is over.” She crossed herself devoutly.

  Armed with this information, Dame Beatrice planned her day. At ten in the morning she walked over to Tom Quince’s cottage and obtained the key to the woodwork shed.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Contents of a Cellar

  “. . . and with this the cabinet communicated separately by a second flight of stairs. There were besides a few dark closets and a spacious cellar . . . The cellar . . . was filled with crazy lumber.”

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  “Key to the woodwork shed, ma’am?” said Tom Quince. “Sure I’ve got a key, but there’s nothing to see in there except the benches and tools and that.” They walked over the field towards it.

  “It seems a long way from the main building,” Dame Beatrice remarked. “Have you ever thought that, out of school hours, it has been used for improper purposes?”

  “Depends what you mean by that, ma’am. Mr. Chassett used to come here to do private jobs, and I don’t know if he had permission.”

  “Did he come after dark?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am, not so far as I’m aware. There ain’t no kind of light, you see, ’cepting what comes in at the winders. You couldn’t do his kind of work after dark.”

  “So if, at any time after dark, anyone saw a light in here, it could only be an electric torch or a lantern, I suppose?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You did not report to the headmistress that Mr. Chassett made use of the shed after school hours?”

  “Never crossed my mind, ma’am. It was his workroom, so I reckoned he’d a right to the use of it.”

  “And to the tools?”

  “For all I know, he bringed his own. It were no business of mine. One thing he did used to bring with him, though, and that was his young lady.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Kind of plumber’s mate, he told me she was. Handed him the tools and held things when he wanted a bit of help, but I wouldn’t like to swear that was all there was to it, not with a young feller and a girl all on their lonesome, like, in the middle of a big field.”

  “I see. How do you come to know anything about it?”

  “I run into them one summer evening. About six o’clock it was. I was walking back after taking the convent car to the garridge on account of Sister telling me she was knocking and I see them crossing the field, so I ketches up with them and I says, ‘Something you left behind, sir?’ He says no and tells me about a private job and hands me this dope about the young lady helping him and then he takes me aside and says, ‘Have a heart, Quince. It’s the only chance we has,’ he says. ‘I can’t take her home to help me in my workshop there,’ he says, ‘on account of her being a Methody. My mam would never stand for it,’ he says. Well, it seemed a shame for me to bung a brick at ’em, as you might say, me being soft-hearted that way, so until we has that turn-up at the school, and books and papers chucked all over the shop, I keeps out of their way and I never sees the young lady again ’cos I takes care as I doesn’t. But once I starts patrolling the place, as ordered, I tips Mr. Chassett the wink. ‘It’s all right about you, sir,’ I says to him, ‘but I has my orders and the young lady comes under the heading,’ I says, ‘of interlopers on the premises.’”

  “And what response did he make to that?”

  “He looks at me a bit old-fashioned, but he says all right, if that’s the way it’s got to be, and he supposes he’ll have to take the young lady to the pictures in Bristington to keep her pacified, like.”

  “And is his mother such a dragon?”

  “I couldn’t say. She used to teach in the school here once upon a time. We was a boarding school then and the teachers, they lived in.”

  “At the convent?”

  “That’s right. Of course, it was all them years ago and I was only gardener’s boy at the time. Mind you, I have heard it said as it was only because of his mam that Mr. Chassett was give a job here. His dad done time, you see.”

  “Dear me!”

  “IRA, ma’am, and up to all the tricks. You know, bombs and that. Over here, too, which I have always said they should keep their troubles at home and stay where they belong. Anyway, he got pinched in Liverpool—Liverpool Irish, I reckon he was—and broke his neck jumping the nick.”

  “Chassett isn’t an Irish name, is it?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t think it is. It wasn’t the father’s name, neither. Him and his mother changed to her maiden name when the old man was killed.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Dame Beatrice, as though this was news. They inspected the shed. It told Dame Beatrice nothing, but she had a feeling that Tom Quince had told her a good deal.

  There remained the Cartwright children, but she hoped for little, if anything, from Cecilia or her small sister. However, she presented herself at their home—a detached, imposing residence in the most aristocratic section of B
ristingto—at the appointed time, met the children’s mother, and was told that her husband was playing golf and would not be home for tea.

  “We have it early on Sundays because of Mass,” Mrs. Cartwright explained. Dame Beatrice understood the significance of this. At least an hour must elapse between taking ordinary food and receiving the sacred wafer.

  “Of course,” she said, nodding. “At what time do you set off for church?”

  “My husband will pick us up in the car at six, so there is plenty of time.” She inclined her head towards the two little girls. “Do I sit in?”

  “As you wish.”

  “Oh, well, then, perhaps I should hear what is said.”

  So, when tea was over and Mrs. Cartwright was seated apart pretending to read, Dame Beatrice began her catechism.

  “The police,” she said, “are on the track of a couple of wanted men and need your help. So far as we know, you are the only people who have seen them.”

  “Are you the police?” asked Cecilia.

  “Home Office,” said Dame Beatrice impressively. She lowered her beautiful voice, but not sufficiently to render Mrs. Cartwright out of earshot. “They are international criminals, we think, so the Home Office has to be brought in. It may mean extradition, you see.”

  “Will they be sent to Devil’s Island?”

  “It depends upon their nationality. It could be Devil’s Island; it could be Sing Sing; it could be Dartmoor. Wherever it is, there will be top security, you may be certain of that.”

  “We didn’t really see them, you know.”

  “Were they tall or short, would you say?”

  “They were sort of creeping along, so I wouldn’t really know how big they were and, besides, the lantern made ugly shadows on the wall.”