The Religious Body iscm-1

by Catherine Aird

  He started to pace up and down. Sloan examined the guy closely. The habit was genuine and it was the same as that worn by the nuns next door. The face had been made out of an old stocking, stuffed, with a couple of black buttons sewn on for eyes and the glasses kept on over these with a piece of string tying the ends together at the back. The rest of the habit was spread over a tightly stuffed large sack. No attempt had been made to make feet, and the figure—squat and dumpy—had a distinct resemblance to that of Queen Victoria towards the end of her Sixty Glorious Years.

  “I suppose I should have expected something like this,” said Ranby after a minute or two. “They are none of them old. Besides, they took the news of the gating too well.”

  “When did you tell them, sir?”

  “After supper on Sunday evening.” He laughed shortly. “Gave them a day or so to hatch something up. She smells a bit, doesn’t she?”

  “The flames caught a little.”

  “Inspector…”

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t think me inquisitive but how did you come to hear about this? You’re from Berebury, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right, sir. Someone telephoned us.”

  “The devil they did! Who on earth would do that? And why?”

  “The caller didn’t leave his name, sir. Just said he thought we’d be interested.”

  “But why? It’s not a crime, is it, to burn a guy? Or is it sedition? Or an anti-Popish Plot or something obscure like that?”

  “No, sir, not that I know of.”

  “Well, Inspector, while I don’t blame you for rescuing it, I’m not sure that it might not have been better from my point of view if it had been burnt to cinders. Then there would have been no chance of either the Big House or the Dower House seeing.” He finished his drink. “But they’d have heard in the end, I suppose.”

  “Do you know which of your students would have been responsible for this—the idea, getting the habit and so forth?”

  “No.” The Principal frowned. “We’ve got about a hundred and fifty men here with about a dozen natural leaders among them. They’re here for three years, but the freshmen have only been in residence a month, so I would say a second- or third-year man for sure. That’s a point. The habit… Don’t say they took that from the Convent!” He ran his hands through his hair. “I’d never live that down. But they couldn’t, Inspector. How would they get in or out?”

  “I don’t know if the habit came from there or not, sir, but I will find out presently.”

  “And I’ll find out the man responsible for the guy and take him round to the Convent in the morning to apologise. I think I’d better tell Miss Faine myself. She’s a very devout girl, you know.”

  “She didn’t come round this evening?”

  “No, thank God. No, she’s gone to London for the day to have a fitting for her dress.”

  Sloan straightened up. “Thank you, sir, you’ve been most helpful. There’s just one thing. This ring-leader. I want to talk to him myself—before anyone on the staff, I mean. That’s important.”

  “I’m a bit bewildered, Inspector, but if that’s how you want it, I’ll track him down and send him to you.”

  “If you would. My constable’s already seeing how far he can get tonight.”

  “Is he?” Marwin Ranby looked momentarily annoyed, and then smiled again. “Perhaps he’ll be successful, though I fear we both represent authority. But, Inspector, why this interest in a guy? It’s not usual for the police to—”

  “Hadn’t you heard, sir? One of the Sisters at the Convent died last night from injuries that we can’t immediately account for.”

  “No!” He looked down at the travesty on the sofa. “We are in trouble then. That makes this very much worse, doesn’t it?”

  “More interesting, too, sir, wouldn’t you say? Now, if you would just hold the door open I’ll put her in the car.”

  The Fire Brigade had gone now and a few boys were trying to coax the damp fire back into life. Crosby loomed up out of the near darkness and helped Sloan lay the guy on the back seat of the police car.

  “Watch her carefully, Crosby.”

  “Inspector Bring-’em-back-alive,” murmured Crosby, but fortunately Sloan was out of earshot. He was stumbling among the trees looking for Harold Cartwright. He found him at the far corner of the reviving fire and drew him to one side.

  “There’s just one question I want to ask you, sir. Did you or did you not telephone us about this guy?”

  “Me, Inspector? No. No, I heard about it in The Bull and came along to see what was going on. I would have rung you as soon as I saw the guy, of course, if I hadn’t heard the fire siren.”

  “Of course.”

  Cartwright gave him a tight smile. “I’m glad to see the Lady’s Not for Burning. Funny thing for them to do, wasn’t it?”

  “Very.” Sloan stumped back to the car and climbed in beside Crosby. He sniffed. “Something’s burning— the guy…”

  “No, sir, it’s me.” Crosby flushed in the darkness. “A jumping cracker. One of the little perishers tied it to my coat.”

  “Get him?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not an augury, that’s all.”

  7

  « ^ »

  Back in Berebury Sloan dissected the guy with the same care that Dr. Dabbe had gone about his post-mortem. He was joined by Superintendent Leeyes.

  “Who is this man Cartwright?” he demanded.

  “He says he’s her cousin, sir.”

  “And he just appears out of the blue asking to see her the afternoon after she’s killed when he hasn’t seen her for twenty years?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What does he want to do that for?”

  “I don’t know yet, sir.”

  “Find out about him for a start. If he hadn’t come to the Convent this afternoon was there anything to connect him with this woman?”

  “Only his name and address in the hotel register. It needn’t have been the right one but it was.”

  “So he has a reason—a good reason—for coming, Sloan, hasn’t he? Otherwise he would have cleared off as soon as he could.” Leeyes grunted. “Perhaps it was to make sure she was dead.”

  “Or that he’d clobbered the right one.”

  “If he’d waited to hear in the ordinary way about that death he might have waited quite a while, of course. There’s no obligation on their part to tell anyone, I suppose.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They call it a Living Death so perhaps there’s not a lot of difference.”

  “We’ve got a lead, anyway, which is something. I’ll go to see the mother in the morning and also find out a bit more about this man. We’ve checked on The Bull already. He arrived at about seven-thirty, spent an hour over his meal, had a couple of drinks in the bar and then went out for a stroll.”

  The superintendent’s head went up. “When did you say she was last seen alive?”

  “About a quarter to nine—at the end of Vespers.”

  “When did he get back?”

  “The landlord didn’t notice. Says he was busy with the usual crowd.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Not a fool.”

  The superintendent wasn’t a fool either. “What was he doing at this bonfire?”

  Sloan shook his head. “I don’t know, sir.”

  “And who rang here and told us about it?”

  “A man’s voice, it was, but that’s all that switchboard can tell us.”

  Leeyes indicated the guy. “Someone wanted us to see this before it was burnt to a cinder. Why?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Not yet. There’s one thing—the footprints we found weren’t Cartwright’s.”

  “Those glasses—are they the missing ones?”

  “I don’t know that either, sir, yet.” Sloan undid them very carefully. “We’ll try them for fingerprints, but I doubt if we’ll get anything worth while.” He undid the habit and coif and slipped th
em off, leaving a large stuffed farm sack lying on the bench. The habit, deeply scorched in places, was old and darned. He felt its thinness between his fingers.

  Superintendent Leeyes grunted. “I don’t get it, Sloan. This woman, Sister Anne, she wasn’t naked or anything?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” said Sloan, deeply shocked. “It’s not that sort of place at all.”

  “Perhaps she was killed in her Number Ones,” said Leeyes. “Or perhaps this tomfoolery has got nothing whatsoever to do with it and you’re wasting your time, Sloan. In that case,” he fingered the charred habit, “it would seem that the wrong one’s wearing the sackcloth and ashes—eh?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sloan dutifully.

  Sloan had been married for fifteen years.

  Long enough to view his wife’s nightly ritual with face cream with patient indifference.

  Long enough for her to be surprised as he slipped into bed beside her when he pulled the white sheet right round and across the top of her forehead.

  “Denis, what on earth are you doing?”

  He tucked the blanket as far under her chin as it would go and considered her.

  “That’s all you can see of a nun.”

  “I should think so, too. What more do you want?”

  “Funny what a good idea of a woman you can get from this bit.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t you believe it, dear. Men always think that. It’s not true.”

  “No grey now.”

  “Beast,” retorted his wife equably. “On the other hand, you can’t see my ankles.” Margaret Sloan had very good ankles and very little grey hair.

  He relaxed his hold on the sheet and lay on his back. “Margaret…”

  “Well?”

  “What would make a woman go into a convent?”

  “Don’t they call it having a vocation or something? Like nursing or teaching.”

  “They can’t all have felt a call, can they? There’s over fifty of them there.”

  “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “Perhaps they were religious-minded anyway and then something happened to drive them there.”

  “Like what—as Crosby would say?”

  “Being lonely, would you think, or jilted perhaps, or the man in their life loving another. That sort of thing.” She tugged at the pillow. “Or not having any man there in the first place, of course.”

  Sloan yawned. “Escape, too, would you say? Not facing up to things. Running away from life.”

  “There’s always that, I suppose.”

  “Not my idea of a life. The superintendent called it a living death.” He pulled the eiderdown up. “Can’t see you going in one either, dear.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said his wife.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Suppose something had happened to you after we got engaged. What should I have done then, do you think? A living death wouldn’t have mattered very much then, would it?”

  He turned to face her, oddly disconcerted. “I… I hadn’t thought of that.”

  She snuggled down in the bed. “Mind you,” she said sleepily, “I don’t think I would have made a very good nun.”

  Marwin Ranby’s study at the Agricultural Institute looked almost as comfortable in daylight as it had done in the cosy, shaded light of last evening. There was a young woman with him. She had pale, auburn hair and the delicate, almost translucent skin that often goes with it. The clothes she was wearing were deceptively, ridiculously simple, and Sloan was not at all surprised to find himself being introduced to Miss Celia Faine, the last of her line and Marwin Ranby’s fiancée.

  “I have been telling Miss Faine something of last night’s excitement,” said the Principal.

  “But, I suspect, not everything,” said Celia Faine with a smile. She had a pleasant, unaffected voice. “Marwin’s being very discreet, Inspector.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, miss,” responded Sloan.

  “Or should I say ‘mysterious’? It’s because he thinks I should mind. But I know his boys get up to all sorts of things. They wouldn’t be boys if they didn’t, would they? I don’t think the Sisters would mind either if they did hear about it—they’re perfectly sweet, you know, and so—sort of balanced, if you know what I mean. You feel they are finished with the petty, trivial things that don’t matter. It isn’t as if it was a demonstration against them or anything. Nobody minded them coming to Cullingoak, and we had to do something with the house. In fact, I think people are glad they’re there in a way.”

  “Celia thinks their sanctity balances out the devilment in my young men,” said Ranby lightly, matching her tone, “but I’m not so sure myself. Until last night I wouldn’t have thought they were even aware of them. We hear their bell on a clear day—that usually provokes a crack or two about getting the cows in—but nothing more.”

  “What about last night?” asked Sloan.

  “No news, Inspector. None of my staff knew anything about the guy.”

  “You have other means of finding out?”

  “Naturally. I can if necessary interview the whole lot, but that takes time. I was hoping to appeal to them at supper tonight—it’s the first meal that they will all be at together. I have already checked that no one had a late pass on Wednesday night.”

  “Is that infallible? My experience is that it isn’t as a rule.”

  “Rumour has it the Biology Laboratory window can be persuaded to open if pressure is judiciously applied in the right place.”

  “I’ll get my constable to fingerprint it straight away.”

  “You really want this chap, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Sloan shortly. “We do.”

  Strelitz Square was still a square in the sense that its Georgian creator had intended, and there was still a garden in the middle. The houses were tall, dignified and—most significant of all—still lived in. Number Seventeen was on the north side, facing the thin November sun. Sloan and Crosby rang the bell at exactly ten-thirty the next morning. An elderly, aproned maid answered the door.

  He didn’t mention the Convent this time. “Detective-Inspector Sloan,” he said, “would be obliged if Mrs. Cartwright would spare him a moment or two.”

  The woman looked them over appraisingly and then invited them in. She would enquire if Mrs. Cartwright was at home.

  “Funny way of carrying on,” said Crosby.

  “You’re in Society now, constable, and don’t you forget it. Plenty of money here.” Sloan looked quickly round the room into which they had been shown. “Pictures, china, furniture—the lot.”

  Crosby fingered a finely carved chair. “Is this fashion, sir?”

  “It was,” said Sloan, “about two hundred years ago. It’s antique, like everything else in the room.” He pointed to a set of Dresden shepherdesses. “They’ll be worth more than your pension. Don’t suppose they picked up that walnut bureau for five bob either or those plates…”‘

  “Good morning, Inspector.” An elderly figure appeared in the doorway, “Admiring my Meissen? Charming, isn’t it?”

  “Good morning, madam,” said Sloan, not committing himself about the Meissen, whatever that was.

  Mrs. Cartwright was old, ramrod-backed and thin. She rested a claw-like hand on the back of the chair just long enough for Sloan to see the battery of rings on it and then she sat down. She was dressed—and dressed very well indeed—in grey with touches of scarlet. Sloan searched her face for a likeness to Sister Anne but found only heavy make-up and the tiny suture marks of an old face-lift. Her hair was a deep mahogany colour and the total effect quite startling.

  “You have something to say, Inspector.”

  “Yes, madam.” Sloan jerked his mind back. She must be over eighty, and he thought he had bad news for her. “I understand you had a telephone call yesterday afternoon from the Convent of St. Anselm.”

  Not a muscle on her face moved.

  “And that you refused to take that call.”

  “That is so.”
Her voice was harsher than he expected.

  “Why, madam?”

  “Is it anything to do with you?”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “Really, Inspector, I can see no reason why…”

  “You had a daughter there.”

  Mrs. Cartwright rose and walked towards a bell by the fireplace. “I have no daughter.”

  “One moment, madam. You are quite right…”

  She stopped and looked at him.

  “You have no daughter. But you had one.”

  She stood rigidly in front of the fireplace and said , again in a well-controlled voice, “I have no daughter.” She put her finger towards the bell.

  “Mrs. Cartwright!”

  “Well?” Her finger was poised.

  “You had a daughter called Josephine Mary.”

  A spasm of emotion passed across her face. “Inspector, I lost my daughter thirty years ago.”

  “Lost her?”

  “Lost her. She left me, she left everything.” Mrs. Cartwright waved a painted fingernail round the room. “Abandoned. Moreover, Inspector, her name has not been mentioned in this house from that day to this. I see no reason to discontinue the habit. Now, if you will either state your business or leave.”

  “When did you last see her, madam?”

  ‘The day she left home.”

  “Thirty years ago?”

  “Thirty-one. She was eighteen and a half.”

  So Sister Anne had been forty-nine. She hadn’t looked as old as that.

  “And you, madam, hadn’t seen her yourself since then?” Sloan hoped he was keeping the wonder out of his voice.

  “Not once. I told her that she needn’t expect me to visit her. And I never did.”

  “Had—have you any other children?”

  “She was the only one, Inspector, and she left me. She was a convert, of course. Nothing would persuade her. Nothing.” The old eyes danced. “She wanted to eschew the World, the Flesh and the Devil, Inspector, and she did. At eighteen and a half, without knowing anything about any of the three of them. I hope she’s enjoyed it, that’s all. Being walled up with a lot of other women praying all day long instead of getting married and having children. What’s she done, Inspector? Run away after all these years?”