The Religious Body iscm-1

by Catherine Aird

  It was quite comical to see Woman-Sergeant Perkins doing a quick calculation of Sister Lucy’s age on the material available to her.

  “Happy years?” queried Sloan.

  “Everything was very strange at first, Inspector, but it gradually becomes a very rewarding way of life.”

  “Most of your—er—colleagues came here straight from school—it is permitted then to enter later?”

  She nodded. “It is permitted, Inspector. It does not happen very often. I had not intended to become a nun when I left school, you see, but my aunt—I was brought up by an aunt—she was able to get dispensation from the Very Reverend Mother General.”

  “I see,” said Sloan. “Thank you, Sister.”

  He didn’t see, but Sergeant Perkins did.

  “What’s a good-looking woman like that doing in a Convent?” she asked shrewdly, when Sister Lucy had retired. “There’s waste for you. Put her into a decent frock and she’ll still stop the traffic. I’ll bet she’s got good legs, too…”

  “We shall never know,” said Sloan. “Shall we?”

  “Of course,” went on Sergeant Perkins, “all that shy stuff that they play at—eyebrow fluttering, not looking at you and that sort of thing—that’s all very fetching anyway, but she’s a real good-looker, isn’t she?”

  “It’s double murder we’re investigating,” said Sloan dryly. “Not abduction. And it wasn’t the good-looking one that bought it either. It was the one with the fifty per cent holding in Cartwright’s Consolidated Chemicals.”

  “And she was plain?”

  “Not as bad as some we’ve seen this afternoon,” said Sloan fairly, “but plain enough.”

  Sergeant Perkins sighed. “So it wasn’t her Sir Galahad at Vespers, disguised as a nun and come to rescue her?”

  “If it was anyone at all,” said Sloan, “it was the murderer.”

  “Like the joke says?”

  “What joke?”

  Sergeant Perkins opened her eyes wide. “Haven’t you heard it, sir?”

  “Not yet,” said Sloan grimly, “but I’m going to. Now,” he looked from one to the other, “Crosby, have you heard it?”

  “Yes, sir. Often.” He coughed bashfully. “They sing it every time I go into the canteen.”

  “Do they indeed? Suppose you sing it to me now…”

  “Not sing it, sir. I can’t sing.”

  “I want to hear it, Crosby, and fast.”

  Crosby cleared his throat and managed a sort of chant:

  “You may kiss a nun once,

  You may kiss a nun twice,

  But you mustn’t get into the habit.”

  17

  « ^ »

  That you, Sloan?”

  Sloan held the Convent telephone receiver at a distance suitable for the superintendent’s bellow.

  “Leeyes here,” said the voice unnecessarily.

  “ ‘Evening, sir.”

  “Just to let you know,” trumpeted the superintendent, “that the rest of the Force haven’t been idle while you’ve been sitting around in that Parlour with Sergeant Perkins.”

  “And fifty nuns, sir.”

  Leeyes chose not to hear this. “We’ve got Hobbett for you.”

  “Good,” said Sloan warmly. “I want a few words with him.”

  “They picked him up in The Dog and Duck just after opening time.”

  “Keep him, sir, I’ll be back.”

  “I wasn’t proposing to let him go, Sloan, though he’s invoking everyone you’ve ever heard of. And then some. They tell me he’d hardly had time to sink his first pint and he’s very cross.”

  “That suits us nicely, sir. Can you leave him to cool off while I go on from here to the Institute? There’s something I want to ask them there.”

  “I don’t mind, Sloan, though I dare say the Station Sergeant might. However, you can make your own peace with him later. Talking of Sergeants, Sloan…”

  “Sir…?”

  “Sergeant Gelden’s turned up at last. With that bigamist. Silly fool.”

  It was only fairly safe to assume he meant the bigamist.

  “Do you want him back instead of Crosby?”

  Sloan sighed. “No, sir. Not at this stage. I’ll keep Crosby now I’ve got him, but if you can spare Gelden I’d very much like him to go to West Laming for me.”

  “Tonight?” They would have finished the nineteenth hole too before the superintendent got to the golf club. “Funny place to send a man on a Saturday night.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sloan turned through the pages of his notebook, peering at his own handwriting. The electric light bulbs in this corridor couldn’t be a watt over twenty-five. “I want him to find out all he can about a Miss Felicity Ferling, who left there about ten years ago.”

  “I suppose you know what you’re doing, Sloan.”

  “Yes, sir.” Someone had once said, “Never apologise, never explain.” Someone with more self-confidence than he had. Disraeli, was it? “And tell him,” added Sloan boldly, “to ring me from there. Not to wait until he gets back.”

  “He won’t get back, not tonight anyway. It must be the best part of ninety miles away.”

  “Yes, sir, but if he starts now I should hear from him before ten.”

  The superintendent came in on another tack. “Getting anywhere with all those women?”

  “I’m not sure, sir,” parried Sloan. “They’re a strange crew. Not like ordinary witnesses at all. They don’t wonder about anything because they don’t think it’s right.”

  “Theirs not to reason why…” Leeyes didn’t seem to see where the rest of that quotation was going to lead him. “Theirs but to do… and… er… die.”

  “Just so, sir,” said Sloan.

  Sergeant Perkins went with them to the Institute.

  “I may need you,” said Sloan. “I expect Ranby’s fiancée will be there. She’s got good legs and you can at least see ’em.”

  “No uniform?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Classic wool twin set, single string of pearls, quiet tweed skirt…”

  “One of those,” said Sergeant Perkins feelingly.

  “Nice girl all the same, I should say. She won’t have abandoned Ranby at a time like this.”

  They found not only Celia Faine with Ranby in the Principal’s room but Father MacAuley too.

  “A sad, sad business,” said the priest.

  “Terrible,” endorsed Ranby. “A young life like that just cut off. It doesn’t make sense. Do you—may one ask—are you making any headway, Inspector?”

  “In some ways,” said Sloan ambiguously.

  “His people will be here by midday tomorrow. Not that that’s any help. We know who he is.” The Principal looked older now.

  “We don’t know very much about him though,” commented Sloan mildly.

  “I can’t say that we do either. One tends to know best those who come up against authority—sad but true—and Tewn wasn’t one of those. He seemed a likeable lad; not an outstanding student, mark you, but a trier.”

  “He’d remembered one of the things you’d taught him,” said Sloan.

  Ranby twisted his lips wryly. “I’m glad to hear it. What was that?”

  “Something about feeding the calves. All a matter of getting the milk warm enough.”

  The Principal’s face stiffened. “Getting the milk warm enough?”

  “That’s right, sir. When you feed calves by hand, you taught them—on Thursday afternoon, was it?— that getting the calves to take the milk was all a matter of getting the milk warm enough.”

  “So I did,” said Ranby warily, “but what’s it got to do with Tewn’s death?”

  “I couldn’t say,” murmured Sloan equivocally. “I couldn’t say at all. Now, sir, would you say this lad had any enemies?”

  “Just the one,” said Ranby dryly.

  “What? Oh, yes, sir, I see what you mean. Very funny.” Sloan sounded quite unamused.

  “Poor lad,” said Celia Faine.
“At least he couldn’t have known very much about it. Strangling’s very quick, isn’t it?”

  “So I’m told, miss.” He looked at her. “Sister Anne wouldn’t have known all that much either, come to that. Just the one heavy blow.”

  The girl shivered. “It doesn’t seen possible. Cullingoak’s always been such a peaceful, happy village. And now…” She made a gesture of helplessness. “Two innocent, harmless people are killed.”

  “Innocent,” said Sloan sharply, “but not harmless. That’s the trouble, isn’t it?”

  Father MacAuley nodded. “The boy was harmless until he got inside the Convent. Sister Anne—we may have thought she was harmless but someone wanted her dead. It wasn’t an accident. It couldn’t have been.”

  “Murder,” said Sloan tersely. “Well planned and carried out.” There was a small silence. “However, no doubt we shall find out in due course the person responsible and thence the murderer of this lad Tewn.”

  The priest nodded. “In due course, I’m sure you will. I’ve just left the Convent—they’re not altogether happy about being left alone tonight without any male protector but they tell me you can’t spare a man.”

  Sloan shook his head. “Sorry. Not on a Saturday evening. Any chance of your going back there, Father, for a while?”

  “Me? Certainly, Inspector. I quite understand how they feel. Their experiences of the past four days are enough to make anyone feel apprehensive.”

  Ranby nodded. “I don’t blame them either. I’ll come across with you, Father, and see if we can’t arrange something for tonight. What about their gardener fellow?”

  “Hobbett? No,” said Sloan regretfully. “You can’t have him. We’re keeping him at the station this evening for questioning. I shouldn’t care to have the responsibility of leaving him as protector.”

  “Ranby and I will go across when they’ve had supper and Vespers then,” said the priest, “and fix things so that they feel safer.”

  “So that they are safer,” said the Principal.

  “Thank you.” Sloan rose to go. “There was just one thing I wanted to ask Miss Faine…”

  Celia Faine lifted her eyebrows enquiringly.

  “You know the house better than anyone, miss?”

  “Perhaps I do,” she agreed. “I was a child there and children do explore.”

  “Tell me—it’s an old house, I know—is there any place there that someone could hide? A priest’s hole or anything like that?”

  She smiled. “Not that I know of, Inspector. Nothing so romantic. Or exciting.” She frowned. “It’s large, I know, as houses go, but straightforward—the hall, the Chapel, the dining-room—that’s the refectory now, of course—one or two smaller rooms—the drawing-room was upstairs. I expect it’s a dormitory now, and then the Long Gallery. I can’t think what they’ll have used that for. Nothing else. No mysteries.” She smiled again. “The only thing I ever discovered as a child was the newel post at the bottom of the great staircase. My cousin and I were playing one day and we found the orb at the top lifted out. It’s on a sort of stalk and it slides on and out quite easily. We used to play with that a lot.”

  “Round and smooth and heavy and staring you in the face,” snapped Superintendent Leeyes. “Well, is there blood on it?”

  “Dr. Dabbe’s examining it now,” said Sloan. “But it’s been cleaned three times since Wednesday night, and when these nuns say clean they mean clean.”

  “Did that Sister with the blood on her hand…”

  “Peter.”

  “Did she touch it that morning?”

  “She thinks she did. She won’t swear to it, but she thinks she sometimes touches it.”

  “She thinks she sometimes touches it,” .mimicked the superintendent. “What a crowd! And did she sometimes touch it on Thursday morning?”

  “She can’t remember for certain. She might have done.”

  “When was it cleaned?”

  “First thing after breakfast. Before Terce and Sext.”

  “What are… ?”

  “Their Office, sir.”

  “Before they’d realised it was blood on that book?”

  “The Gradual? Yes, sir. They didn’t examine the book until afterwards. The staircase, landings and hall are always cleaned immediately after breakfast each day.”

  Leeyes drummed his fingers on the desk. “So it could still be anyone, Sloan.”

  “Anyone, sir, who knew that part of the newel post came out and would constitute a nice heavy weapon, ideal for murder.”

  Hobbett was easy meat really.

  “You can’t keep me here, Inspector. I haven’t done nothing wrong and I can prove it. I wasn’t running away neither. I allus come into Berebury Sat’day afternoons.”

  “What you did wrong, Hobbett, was agreeing to let those young gentlemen into the Convent. I know an old habit isn’t worth much, but look at the trouble you’ve caused. And now you’re involved in a double murder case whether you like it or not, aren’t you?”

  “I didn’t ’ave nothing to do with no murder. I just fergot to lock up Wednesday night, that’s all. Clean went out of my mind.”

  “You arranged—for a small consideration,” said Sloan in a steely voice, “to leave the old habit in your wood store in the cellar and to forget to lock up. And three students named Parker, Bullen and Tewn were to creep in and collect it. Tewn did the creeping and Tewn’s dead.”

  “It weren’t nothing to do with me,” protested Hobbett. “I only did like you said. Moving an old piece of cloth from one place to another and forgetting to lock up—that’s not a crime, is it? What’s that got to do with murder?”

  “Everything,” said Sloan sadly. “It provided the opportunity.”

  The telephone was ringing as Sloan got back to his room.

  Crosby handed over the receiver. “For you, sir. London.”

  “Inspector Sloan? Good. About our friends the Cartwrights and their Consolidated Chemicals…”

  “Yes?”

  “Something I think will interest you, Inspector.”

  “Yes?”

  “Harold—the principal subject of our enquiry— highly respected, highly respectable business man. Hard but straight.”

  “Well?”

  “His father—Joe—not such a good business man but quite a fellow with the chemicals in his day. Past it now, of course.”

  “Of course. He must be about eighty-five.”

  “That’s just it. He is. And he had a stroke on Tuesday night. He’s still alive but not expected to recover.”

  Sloan whistled. “So that’s what upset the applecart!”

  “At a guess—yes.”

  “Thank you,” said Sloan. “Thank you very much.”

  “I’m glad it was useful information,” said the voice plaintively, “because I should have been at Twickenham this afternoon.”

  Sloan pushed the telephone away from him.

  “So, Crosby, if Sister Anne died before Uncle Joe all was well. If she consented to the firm going public all was not well but better than it might have been. If she neither died nor consented, Cousin Harold inherited his father’s half minus death duties leaving Sister Anne with her half intact and a strong leaning to the Mission field and making restitution.”

  “Tricky,” said Crosby.

  “Tricky? Cousin Harold must have been in a cold sweat in case his father died before he got to Cullingoak and Sister Anne.”

  “Sir, what about that awful old woman we saw in London, Sister Anne’s mother—doesn’t she come into this?”

  Sloan shook his head. “No. She’s only got a life interest that reverts to either her daughter, brother-in-law or nephew according to the order in which they survive. We can leave her out of this. Give me that telephone back, will you? I’m going to ask Cousin Harold to go up to the Convent.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight, Crosby. After the good Sisters have had supper and Vespers.”

  Crosby started to thumb through
the telephone directory.

  “Crosby, where’s Sergeant Perkins?”

  “In the canteen, sir.”

  “Get them to save me something, and then tell her I want to see her. I’m going back to see the superintendent when I’ve spoken to Cousin Harold.”

  “It was blood then, Sloan.”

  “Yes, sir. Dr. Dabbe’s just sent along his report. Minute traces, dried now and mixed with polish, but indubitably blood.”

  “Group?”

  “The same as Sister Anne’s, the same as on the Gradual.”

  “And as a possible weapon?”

  “Ideal.” Sloan tapped the pathologist’s report. “He won’t swear to it being the exact one…”

  “Of course not,” said Leeyes sarcastically. “They never will.”

  “But it fits in every particular.”

  “Good enough for the jury, but not the lawyers?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what do you propose to do now?”

  Sloan told him.

  18

  « ^ »

  Neither the Mother Superior nor Sister Lucy were present at Vespers that Saturday evening. If any member of the Community so far forgot herself as to notice the fact, they took good care not to look a second time at the two empty stalls. The welfare of the Convent of St. Anselm sometimes necessitated their presence in the Parlour with visitors. So it was this evening.

  There were three of them, and a grumbling Sister Polycarp had let them in and taken them to the Parlour. The Convent of St. Anselm did not usually have visitors at the late hour of eight-thirty in the evening and she resented the interruption of her routine. She would have resented still further—had she known about it—two other visitors who had come privily to another door a little earlier. They had tapped quietly on the garden room door that Sister Polycarp had so carefully locked and bolted only an hour before that. But it was mysteriously opened for them and they stepped inside, a man and a woman, locking it as carefully behind them as Sister Polycarp had done so that should she chance to check again there was nothing to show that it had been opened and closed again in the meantime.

  The Mother Superior greeted those who had come by the front door, keeping Sister Polycarp by her side.