The Religious Body iscm-1

by Catherine Aird

  Sister Lucy coughed. “Mother, the Bursar’s accounts. They might show something at the time. We know the date of profession. It would take a little while, but if a dowry had been received it would show in the figures.”

  “Thank you,” said Sloan, taking the Mother Prioress’s concurrence for granted. “That would be a great help. Now, what about a will?”

  “That,” said the Reverend Mother, “would be at our Mother House. It is no part of our intention not to conform to the Common Law of the land in which our House is situated.”

  “Quite.”

  “Sister Lucy shall telephone them for you presently.”

  “Marm, there’s another matter that has been troubling us. You told me that Sister Anne was at Chapel on Wednesday evening and that that was the last time she was seen alive.”

  “That is so. At Vespers by Sister Michael and Sister Damien.”

  “Do you remember what you had for supper on Wednesday?”

  It was clear that she didn’t. She turned to Sister Lucy, who frowned. “It wasn’t a fast day, Mother. Was it steak and kidney pudding? I think it was. Yes, I’m sure. With peas and potatoes. And then a bread and butter pudding.”

  “Thank you. Yes, I remember now. Is it important, Inspector?”

  “What time did you have it?”

  “At a quarter past six. That is when we always have it.”

  “And then is when Sister Anne had hers?”

  “Yes, naturally.”

  “She couldn’t have had hers later?”

  “Not without my knowing.”

  “What happens immediately after supper?”

  “Recreation. From a quarter to seven to eight o’clock. Sisters bring any sewing or similar work to the old drawing-room and they are permitted to move about and talk there as they wish.”

  “I see,” said Sloan. Nice for them, that was. “And then?”

  “They have various minor duties—preparing the refectory for breakfast, locking up the house, general tidying up at the end of the day and so forth. As they finish these the Sisters go into the Chapel for private meditation until Vespers at eight-thirty.”

  “Thank you, marm, that is what I wanted to know. And Sister Damien and Sister Michael sat on either side of Sister Anne at Vespers?”

  “That is so.”

  “With the greatest repect, marm, that is not so. Dr. Dabbe, the pathologist, tells me that Sister Anne died immediately after supper. Her meal was quite undigested.”

  There was a silence in the Parlour, then, “Someone sat between Sister Michael and Sister Damien.”

  “So you tell us, marm.”

  “So they told me, Inspector.”

  “Where was Sister Anne’s place in the Chapel?”

  “In the back row.”

  “No one else need have noticed her then?”

  “No. No, I suppose not. As I said, the Sisters come in when they are ready and kneel until the service begins.”

  “I think we should see the Chapel and the two Sisters.”

  “Certainly. Sister Lucy will take you there now.”

  The Mother Prioress sat on in the empty Parlour, deep in thought. She almost didn’t hear the light tap on the door. She roused herself automatically. “Come in.”

  It was Sister Cellarer. “Did he bring the keys, Mother?”

  She stared at her. “Do you know, Sister, I quite forgot to ask him.”

  9

  « ^ »

  Father MacAuley was the next visitor to the Parlour. Sister Gertrude brought him along.

  “I had quite a job getting in. Polycarp thought I was the Press at first. I’ll have to have a password. ‘Up the Irish’ or some such phrase pleasing to her ear.”

  “There were two reporters and a cameraman this morning,” said the Mother Prioress, “but she sent them away.”

  “So she told me. She didn’t know if the photographer got his picture of her or not before she shut the grille. The flash, she said, reminded her of the dear old days in Ireland. Apparently the last really good flash she saw was the day the I.R.A. blew up the bridge at—”

  “I have warned the Community,” continued the Mother Prioress, “that they may have to go in the grounds in pairs as a precaution against their being— shall we say, surprised—by reporters. I feel there will be more of them.”

  “They do hunt in packs as a rule.”

  “Also there has been what I understand is called a new development in the case.”

  “There has?”

  “The pathologist has said that Sister Anne died immediately after supper which finishes at a quarter to seven. Sister Michael and Sister Damien say she sat between them at Vespers at eight-thirty.”

  The priest nodded sagely. “The Press would like that.”

  “I do not, Father. The implications are very disturbing. If Sister Anne was dead at half past eight, who sat in her stall at Vespers?”

  The priest sat down heavily. “I don’t know. The fact that we do not believe in—er—manifestations will scarcely influence the public—who don’t know what they believe in. They, and therefore the Press, dearly love a ghost. Can’t you see the headlines?”

  The Mother Prioress winced.

  In intervals between inspecting the Convent Chapel, Sloan took one telephone call and made another from the old-fashioned instrument in the corridor. Both were London calls, but neither would have conveyed very much to Mrs. Briggs at the Cullingoak Post Office, who monitored all calls as a matter of course.

  “With reference to your enquiry,” said the London voice, “we have found a very interesting will in Somerset House, made by one Alfred Cartwright, father of Josephine Mary Cartwright. It was made a long time ago, and, in fact, several years before his death. Sounds as if he and his brother Joe were pretty cautious blokes. They’d got everything worked out carefully enough. If Alfred died first his widow was to have the income from his share of the Consolidated Carbon partnership for her lifetime. If he had children they were to get the share when their mother died. If he didp’t have any children or if those children predeceased him or his brother, Joe, then the share in the Cartwright patent was to go to Joe and then his heirs and successors.”

  “Keeping it in the family,” said Sloan.

  “That’s the spirit, old chap. Well, they seem to have gone along fairly slowly with the business—all this was just after the old Queen died, remember. Turn of the century and all that. Then suddenly—and without any warning either—Alfred ups and dies. Pneumonia, it was. We looked up the death certificate, too, while we were about it…”

  “Thank you.”

  “He doesn’t leave very much but not to worry. Not many years afterwards along comes World War One and Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons can’t help making money. Lots and lots of it. Of course, our Alfred doesn’t get the benefit being dead by now, but the stuff keeps on coming in. Must have been pretty well running out of their ears by 1918.”

  “What about brother Joe?”

  “There’s no will registered of his, so presumably he’s still alive. He probably made a reciprocal will at the same time as his brother, but of course he could have altered it since… By the way, we confirm Mrs. Alfred Cartwright’s statement that there was only one child of the marriage. This girl Josephine. Her husband died soon after the baby was born.”

  “And brother Joe?”

  “He had one son by the name of Harold. He must be all of fifty-five now.”

  “We’ve met son Harold.” A thought struck Sloan. “So Joe Cartwright will be quite an age.”

  “Practically gaga, I should say,” said the voice helpfully.

  “What about the firm now?”

  “Ah, you want he whom we call our City Editor. I’m only an historian. Fred Jenkins is the chap for the up-to-the-minute stuff. The only policeman who does his beat in striped pants and a bowler. No truncheon either. Says his umbrella’s better. I’ll give you his number.”

  “Much obliged,” said Sloan. He rang it
immediately.

  “Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons? Very sound, Inspector. Good family firm. A bit old-fashioned but most good old family firms are these days. Well run, all the same. Not closed minds, if you know what I mean.. They’re not entirely convinced that one computer will do the work of fifty men, but if you prove it to them they’ll buy the computer and see the fifty men don’t suffer for it.”

  “The family still manage it?”

  “Lord, yes. Harold Cartwright’s the M.D. Knows the business backwards. Learnt it the hard way, I should say. Let me see now, I think there are two sons and a daughter. That’s right. The daughter married well. Iron ore, I think it was. The boys went to a good school and an even better university. The elder boy had a year at Harvard to see what our American cousins could teach him about business, and the younger one a year on the Rand.”

  “You know a lot about them off the cuff.”

  “One of the largest private companies in the country, Inspector, that’s why,” retorted Jenkins promptly. “They’re always getting write-ups in the City pages suggesting they will be going public but they never do. They’d be quite a good buy when the time comes, of course, that’s why there’s the interest.”

  “I think,” said Sloan slowly, “I can tell you the reason why they’ve stayed private all these years.”

  There was no mistaking the interest at the other end of the line. “You can?”

  “There was a residual legatee here in Calleshire in a convent.” There was a lot of satisfaction in being able to tell London something.

  “That’s it then. What sort of share?”

  “If she survived her uncle I’d say she was stuck in for half.”

  Jenkins whistled. “Buying her out would upset the applecart. I don’t suppose they would have enough liquidity to do it. That’s the trouble with that sort of heavy industry. On the other hand, if they go public and leave her in they could be in a mess. They might lose control, you see. Tricky.”

  “Not quite so tricky now,” said Sloan. “She was killed on Wednesday evening. I don’t know how these things are managed, but I would like to know if this question of going public comes up again now.”

  “I’ll have a poke round the Issuing Houses. Might pick something up. Where can I get you?”

  “Berebury Police Station.”

  Sloan collected Crosby and Sister Lucy from the Chapel. She accepted the money he offered her for the telephone call without embarrassment or demur. “Thank you, Inspector. Bills are quite a problem.”

  All three of them went back to the Parlour.

  “It would seem, Mother,” said Sister Lucy carefully, “that Sister Anne brought no dowry with her when she came. The Bursar’s accounts for that year show no receipt that is likely to be hers.”

  “Thank you, Sister.”

  “I have had her will read to me over the telephone,” went on Sister Lucy. “It was made at our Mother House the year she took her vows. It bequeaths all of that of which she died possessed to our Order.”

  “How much is likely to be involved?” asked Sloan casually.

  Sister Lucy looked at him. “As far as I am aware, nothing at all. Sister Anne brought nothing with her and had no income of any sort while she was here.”

  Father MacAuley coughed. “Aren’t we forgetting the potential?”

  “What potential?” asked the Mother Prioress.

  “Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons. That right, Inspector?”

  “That’s right, Father. I don’t know where you get your information…”

  “You don’t live in Strelitz Square on twopence ha’penny a week.”

  The Mother Prioress leaned forward enquiringly. “Had Sister Anne something to do with—er—Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons?”

  “She did, marm. They are a chemical company formed by her uncle and father to exploit an invention of theirs of a method of combining carbon with various compounds for industrial chemists.”

  “I see.” The Mother Prioress nodded. “That presumably was the source of the family income?”

  “Yes, marm. You didn’t know?”

  “Not personally. My predecessor might have been told by Sister Anne. I do not think,” she added gently, “that it would have concerned us in any way.”

  “Yes,” interrupted Sister Gertrude unexpectedly. “Yes, it would, Mother.”

  Suddenly finding herself the object of every eye in the Parlour, Sister Gertrude blushed and lowered her head.

  “Pray explain, Sister.”

  “This potential that you are talking about was some money that Sister Anne was to come into, wasn’t it?”

  Sloan nodded.

  “Well, she knew about it. She told Sister Damien that the Convent would have it one day and then we could have our cloister.”

  There was silence.

  Sister Gertrude looked from Inspector Sloan to Father Benedict MacAuley and back again. “I don’t know if there would have been enough for a cloister or not,” she said nervously, “but Sister Damien thought so, and so did Sister Anne.”

  “I think,” said the Mother Prioress heavily, “that we had better see Sister Damien and Sister Michael now.”

  Sister Damien came first. Tall, thin and stiff-looking even in the soft folds of her habit, she swept the assembled company with a swift look and bowed to the Mother Prioress.

  “The inspector has some questions for you, Sister. Pray answer them to the best of your recollection.”

  Sister Damien turned an expectant glance to Sloan.

  “I want you to take your mind back to the events of Wednesday evening,” he began easily. “Supper, for instance—what did you have?”

  “Steak and kidney pie, and bread and butter pudding. The reading was of the martyrdom of Saint Denise.”

  “And Sister Anne sat next to you?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Did you speak to her then?”

  “Talking at meals is not permitted.”

  There was an irritating glint of self-righteousness in her eye that Sloan would dearly love to have squashed. Instead he said, “When did you see her again?”

  “Not until Vespers.”

  “What about Recreation?”

  “I didn’t see her then. I was talking to Sister Jerome about some lettering ink for prayer cards. We are,” she added insufferably, “permitted to move about at Recreation.”

  “When did you go into the Chapel?”

  “About a quarter past eight.”

  “Was Sister Anne there then?”

  “No. She came much later. I thought she was going to be late.”

  “But she wasn’t?”

  “No, not quite.”

  “Did you speak to her?” asked Sloan—and wished he hadn’t.

  “Speaking in Chapel is not permitted,” said Sister Damien inevitably.

  “Did you notice anything about her particularly?”

  “No, Inspector, but we practise custody of the eyes.”

  “Custody of the eyes?”

  The Mother Prioress leaned forward. “You could call it the opposite of observation. It is the only way to acquire the true concentration of the religious.”

  Sloan took a deep breath. Custody of the eyes didn’t help him one little bit. “I see.”

  “There was just one thing, Inspector…”

  “Well?”

  “I think she may have been starting a cold. She did blow her nose several times.”

  “About the cloister…”

  An entirely different sort of gleam came into Sister Damien’s eye. She smoothed away an invisible crease in her gown.

  “Yes, Inspector, we shall be able to have that now. Sister Anne said that when she was dead we should have enough money to have our cloister. She told me so several times. And there would be some for the missions, too. She took a great interest in missionary work.”

  “Did she tell you where the money was to come from?” asked Sloan.

  “No. Just that it would be g
oing back to those from whom it had been taken.” Sister Damien seemed able to invest every remark she made with sanctimoniousness. “And that then restitution would have been made.”

  Sister Michael was fat and breathless and older. She did not hear at all well. Panting a little she agreed that Sister Anne had been very nearly late. The last in the Chapel, she thought. She hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary but then she never did. She was a little deaf, you see, and had to concentrate hard on the service to make up for it.

  But Sister Anne was there?

  Sister Michael looked blank and panted a little more. One service was very like the next, Inspector, but she thought she would have remembered if Sister Anne hadn’t been there, if he knew what she meant.

  But she had just told him that Sister Anne was late.

  Yes, well, Sister Damien had reminded her about that this morning.

  What about yesterday morning when Sister Anne definitely wasn’t there. Had she noticed then?

  Well, actually, no. She wasn’t ever very good in the mornings. It took her a little while to get going if he knew what she meant. Deafness, though she knew these minor disabilities were sent purely to test the weak on earth and were as nothing compared with the sufferings of saints and martyrs, was in fact very trying and led to a feeling of cut-offness. Of course, in some ways it made it easier to be properly recollected, if he knew what she meant.

  He didn’t. He gave up.

  10

  « ^ »

  Harold Cartwright received them in his bedroom at The Bull. He appeared to have been working hard. The table was strewn with papers and there were more on the bed. There was a live tape recorder on the dressing-table and he was talking into it when the two policemen arrived. He switched it off immediately.

  “Sit down, gentlemen.” He cleared two chairs. “It’s not very comfortable but it’s the best Cullingoak has to offer. I don’t think they have many visitors at The Bull.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Sloan took out a notebook. “We’re just checking up on a matter of timing and would like to run through your movements on Wednesday again.”

  Cartwright looked at him sharply. “As I told you before, I drove myself down here from London…”