St. Peter's Finger (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “And every guest went with the children?”

  “Every one. I will write you the list.”

  “It was the day before Shrove Tuesday, was it not?” said Mrs. Bradley. “I see. So that means that none of the guests would have been using the bathrooms, and nobody will be able to give any information about the movements and operations of the child.”

  “That is so. It was because I knew that the bathrooms would not be required that afternoon that I was able to tell Miss Bonnet that she might use one, after the game.”

  “That brings me to my next question. It was unusual, I take it, for the guest-house to be completely denuded of guests?”

  “It was most unusual,” said Mother Ambrose vigorously, and almost as though Mother Jude was in some way to blame. “I do not declare that it has never happened before, but I do not recollect its having happened.”

  “Nor I,” said Mother Jude, with matter-of-fact placidity.

  “Now, then: to how many people, besides the guests themselves, was it known that the guest-house would be empty that afternoon? And for how many days beforehand had it been known?”

  “The younger orphans, those who were given the treat, had the news on the previous Thursday, at the end of morning school. The guests had made all the plans, and then had sent the invitation half-way through Thursday morning. I do not know which other people had information that the guest-house would be empty, although I see the purport of your question. You want to know, I think, whether the children of the private school could have known?”

  “Yes, but I see that you cannot tell me. Perhaps Mother Saint Francis would know that. It is indeed kind of you to have been so patient in answering my questions. I think I had better see Mother Saint Francis next.”

  “There is one more thing,” said Mother Ambrose, determined, it seemed, to find Mother Jude somewhere in fault. “Did lay-sister Bridget go to the cinema that day?”

  “No, she did not.” Mother Jude turned to Mrs. Bradley, who was writing hasty hieroglyphics in a notebook. “This Sister Bridget is a poor, afflicted woman who is staying in our guest-house. She was not told about the outing because, for one thing, she does not go to the cinema, and, for another, because she is tiresome, poor thing. We take her out ourselves, but we do not let strangers go with her. It is embarrassing for them. You will understand when you see her.”

  “I wonder,” said Mrs. Bradley, “whether we might go downstairs to the parlour?” When they were seated—the nuns bolt upright on the straightest-backed chairs they could find—she added, “That is extremely interesting. Did Sister Bridget remain in the guest-house, then, whilst the others were out with the children?”

  “Not all the time. It would have been dull for her. She loves company. She went into the Orphanage,” Mother Jude explained. “And washed currants,” said Mother Ambrose, taking up the tale. “She is quite good, and does not eat the fruit.”

  “She says,” observed Mother Jude, “that all dried fruit belongs to the good Saint Paul. She has heard, at some time, I think, that currants take their name from the city of Corinth.”

  “She came over at twenty-past twelve—”

  “I did not want her to see the others go—”

  “And she had her dinner with the older children, and then washed currants until a little before two o’clock.”

  “From two until half-past two she was with us at Vespers, and when we resumed our duties after Vespers she had her afternoon sleep in her bedroom here.”

  The nuns, concluding this triumphant duologue, closed their mouths and modestly dropped their eyes.

  “In her bedroom here in the guest-house?” asked Mrs. Bradley.

  “Yes,” said Mother Jude, for the guest-house was her province.

  “Did the noise made by Miss Bonnet, when she discovered the child’s body, disturb Sister Bridget, do you know?”

  “I do not know. Her room is on the same floor, but I saw nothing of her. I did not think of her. There was so much to be done, and the whole affair was so dreadful that my mind was filled completely.”

  “And you, Mother Saint Ambrose?”

  “I saw nothing of Sister Bridget. I did think of her, though. I hoped that she would not come out upon us because we were so much occupied.”

  “Can you tell me anything more about her? I labour the point because it seems as though she must have been the only person in the guest-house, except for the girls in the kitchen, when the child entered the bathroom. Is she usually left by herself?”

  “Oh, no!” said both the nuns immediately. Mrs. Bradley looked mildly surprised.

  “We never leave Sister Bridget entirely alone anywhere, except in her bedroom,” Mother Jude explained, “and even then there is a lay-sister or one of the other orphans within call, and often I am here, too, with Sister Saint Cyprian, who teaches needlework to both orphans and private school children. On the afternoon in question Kitty and Bessie were on duty together here, Mother Saint Ambrose was supervising laundry work in the laundry (a separate building with its drying-ground just behind this guest-house). I was in the kitchen—the Community kitchen, that is, which adjoins the frater on the south side of the cloister—and Sister Saint Cyprian was taking a needlework class at the school. But you must not think of Sister Bridget as usually being alone and left to her own devices.”

  “That is quite clear. Is it likely or unlikely that Kitty and Bessie would have seen the child when she came to the guest-house for the bath?”

  “It is quite likely they would be unaware that anybody had come in. Generally we use only one door, and that is in the front of the house, and the wall along the end of the guest-house garden is far too high to climb. If Kitty and Bessie were sitting in the kitchen doing some mending or getting on with their compulsory reading, they might not know that the house had been entered from the front. We do not lock the front door until sunset or after.”

  “Is the entrance to the convent grounds also kept open during the daytime, then? I mean, would the child have experienced any difficulty in getting past Sister Magdalene at the gate?”

  “It depends upon the time. The gate is left unlocked from about eight o’clock in the morning until the late afternoon, and the portress is nominally in charge of it. But, of course, she has other duties, and it would not be difficult for a child to slip through the unlocked gate without being seen. If she went through while the portress was at Vespers, she certainly would not be seen.”

  “I see. Thank you.” She made another note. “And now about Miss Bonnet. What was she doing, Mother Saint Ambrose, when first you saw her that day?”

  “Taking off her trousers,” was Mother Ambrose’s startling reply.

  “Taking—?” Mrs. Bradley looked nonplussed.

  “Miss Bonnet described to me once how essential it is, if one wishes to succeed in sports or games, to keep the limbs warm,” said Mother Jude.

  “She was going to play netball with the orphans—”

  “She always played games in shorts—”

  “And over the shorts she wore trousers.”

  “These she took off at the moment that play commenced.”

  “She is quite a modern young woman.”

  “I understand, I think,” said Mrs. Bradley, not knowing whether to admire most the quick comedy-patter of the duologue, or the self-control with which, having said their say, the nuns switched off, as it were, an electric current, and lapsed into immobile silence. “Pardon me for having put my question so ambiguously. I meant, what was she doing when you came into the bathroom that day?”

  “She was on the landing, just outside the door.”

  “Doing nothing?”

  “Nothing at all, so far as I remember. She looked very pale, as though she might be going to faint or turn bilious,” said Mother Ambrose.

  “What was she wearing then?”

  “She was wearing her drill tunic and a jersey.”

  “Not her trousers?”

  “She had her trousers
with her, but for going about the school she always, at the special request of Reverend Mother Superior, put something over her shorts for modesty.”

  “Were the trousers actually in her hand when you saw her first?”

  “No, on the bathroom floor, as though she had dropped them and forgotten them in the shock of seeing the dead child.”

  “And the window, you say, was wide open.”

  “Quite wide open.”

  “Miss Bonnet, Annie thinks, had opened it.”

  “And had dropped what she was carrying to do so?”

  “That would be my inference.”

  “Very sensible of her, I should say. I suppose she wanted to let out the smell of gas.”

  “Did you smell gas, Mother Saint Ambrose?”

  “Certainly. Not strongly, because, of course, the open window must have dispersed the fumes, but strongly enough to be noticeable, and to make obvious the cause of death.”

  “Yet Annie declares that she could smell no gas.”

  “Then her sense of smell must be defective.”

  “Did you smell gas, Mother Saint Jude?”

  “Certainly. I looked to see whether the pilot light of the geyser had been turned off.”

  “Had it?”

  “Yes, quite securely.”

  “But had not the guest-house fence been coated with creosote?”

  “Oh!” said both nuns, as though this point had escaped them.

  “Tell me, please,” said Mrs. Bradley, as though she had decided not to labour it, “about the guest-house towels.”

  “The guest-house towels are distinctive,” said Mother Jude, “and the wet towel seems to have come from one of the rooms. The towels are striped in blue and white, and carry the name of the convent, ‘Sisters of St. Peter in Perpetuity,’ embroidered in red across the corner.”

  “Was the wet towel mentioned at the inquest?”

  “It seemed of no importance.”

  “No? Yet surely that towel might have changed the verdict from suicide to accident? Would a suicide take a towel?”

  “I don’t believe it would have helped to get the verdict altered,” Mother Jude sadly interposed. “People do so many things from habit.”

  “Yet Mother Saint Ambrose said, a short while ago that she was not astonished to find no towels in the bathroom. That, in her opinion and according to her experience, children were feckless beings whose common sense could never be relied on. Perhaps, however, you are right. The towel makes a small point only, although an interesting one. There is one thing more; what happened when you found that it was impossible to resuscitate the child?”

  “Miss Bonnet and the doctor went to have another look at the bathroom, which Annie, by then, had tidied. Sister Saint Ambrose and I went together to Sister Saint Francis to let her know what had occurred. Annie and Bessie were told to remain in the kitchen until they received other instructions, and on no account to let anyone know what had happened.”

  “Did you speak to the doctor again before the inquest?”

  “Yes, he returned with the police.”

  “That seems an extraordinary thing.”

  “He was frank with us. He said that, although he could smell gas when he went into the bathroom with Miss Bonnet—although, now you have mentioned the creosote, it might have been that—he could detect nothing wrong with the water-heater—he is quite a practical man—and that the circumstances needed explaining.”

  “He refused to sign the death certificate, then?”

  The two nuns bowed their heads.

  “And what view did the policeman take?” asked Mrs. Bradley. Mother Jude smiled.

  “He did not confide in us. He took notes, and was exceedingly nervous, and addressed Reverend Mother Superior throughout the conversation as ‘Your Worship.’ He wiped his boots, too, which we thought was nice of him.”

  “And when did the demonstration take place?”

  “On Saturday night,” Mother Ambrose answered. “We were disturbed after dark by a number of wild young men from neighbouring villages.”

  “Were the gates locked?”

  “Fortunately they were. Bessie very bravely volunteered to go for help. She has good qualities although she lacks self-control.”

  “You did not let her go?”

  “We did,” replied Mother Jude. “I myself assisted in helping her over the west wall so that she could get past the attackers without being seen.”

  “It was thought best,” said Mother Ambrose, “that she should go with our assistance and permission rather than that she should be led into the sin of disobedience.”

  “When once the idea had occurred to her, she would have gone in any case,” said Mother Jude, simplifying the other nun’s statement.

  “I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. “And did she obtain assistance?”

  “No. No one would come to our help. It proved impossible to wake the village policeman.”

  This was not news to Mrs. Bradley, who had heard as much from the chambermaid at the inn, and she remarked: “So the policeman who wiped his boots was not the village policeman?”

  “No. He was a man from Kelsorrow. The doctor lives in Kelsorrow, and telephoned from here to the police station. He knows the inspector there.”

  “I see. Thank you, both of you. You have been most kind and patient.”

  “You will doubtless, as you suggested, go next to see Sister Saint Francis,” Mother Ambrose suggested.

  “I think so. Are you going that way? Shall we all three walk together?”

  The nuns were bound respectively for the Orphanage and for the convent kitchen, so, Mother Ambrose stately as a cassowary, Mother Jude like a cheerful, plump little robin, and Mrs. Bradley a hag-like pterodactyl, they proceeded, at the religious pace, to the gatehouse to enter the grounds.

  CHAPTER 7

  HEADMISTRESS

  “He that hath found some fledged bird’s nest may know

  At first sight if the bird be flown;

  But what fair dell or grove he sings in now

  That is to him unknown.”

  HENRY VAUGHAN: They are all gone into the world of light.

  Sister Magdalene saw Mrs. Bradley and the nuns before they arrived at the gate, and was there to open it. The nuns passed through, but Mrs. Bradley halted.

  “You don’t, of course, remember seeing Ursula Doyle go through to the guest-house?” she enquired, with what she felt to be unnecessary persistence. It was one of the major problems in need of solution, this fact that nobody appeared to have seen the child’s approach.

  “I’ve been thinking things over,” the portress observed, as she shut the gate again and accompanied Mrs. Bradley a short way into the grounds. “I believe she must have come through the gate during Vespers.”

  “During Vespers? At what time is that?”

  “From two o’clock until half-past two. I don’t know whether the children are bound to attend, but I know that some, if not all, of those who stay to dinner, go to church then. All the choir nuns go, and all of us whose work can be so arranged, go also. It seems to me that if she had slipped away then and gone to the guest-house, no one would be the wiser.”

  “A very important suggestion,” said Mrs. Bradley, too tactful to let the lay-sister know that it had already been made. “I am obliged to you, Sister Magdalene. That clears up a difficult problem. What about the orphans? Do they attend Vespers, too?”

  “The youngest don’t, but they had gone for their outing. The others, if they were not in church, would be in the Orphanage, or the guest-house, I should think, and in either case would not know who came through the gate.”

  “Yes, I understand. Thank you,” said Mrs. Bradley. She walked on past the laundry, and bent her steps towards the orchard and the field. It was with considerable interest that she looked forward to her first interview with the headmistress of the convent private school. She had spent some time already of the short, early spring afternoon, and it was towards the time of the aft
ernoon break, when, having crossed the orchard in a west to east slant, she passed the school gardens kept by the children themselves, and entered by a wooden door in the high board fence of the playground. There were two entrances into the modern, one-storey building, one in the south, the other in the west wall. She chose the first, went in, knocked at a classroom door, and asked for Mother Saint Francis.

  Mother Francis was a grey-eyed, gracious woman with a red, sensuous mouth, white hands, and an extraordinarily lovely complexion. She was between thirty-five and forty, Mrs. Bradley supposed, and had superimposed the dignity of bearing required of her by her vocation upon natural alertness and energy.

  Although her speech did not betray the fact, it was obvious that she was not an Englishwoman. She received Mrs. Bradley with warmth and great charm of manner, and, when both of them were seated, she observed:

  “I am particularly anxious to have this investigation made, because the child’s stepmother is coming back in a short while to demand a further enquiry into the circumstances of the death. She has made it very hard for us.”

  “Indeed?” said Mrs. Bradley. “Is she not satisfied, then, with the verdict given at the inquest?”

  “By no means.” The nun, who gazed straight ahead of her as she talked—a habit in the religious which Mrs. Bradley was finding disconcerting—paused for a moment and then added: “No one is satisfied with it. I have prepared, if you would care to have it, an exact account of the circumstances, so far as I can discover them. I believe that you have already begun your investigation. Perhaps you can check these facts against any others which have been given you.”

  She opened a drawer in her desk and handed out from it a typed, foolscap document. Her eyes met Mrs. Bradley’s, and rested on them for a short time as though she were trying to communicate something which was in her mind without having to use the medium of words. Apparently she was successful, for Mrs. Bradley said: