St. Peter's Finger (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Ulrica Doyle.

  Mary Maslin.

  Miss D. T. Bonnet.

  Person or persons unknown.

  The Community of Saint Peter.

  Mrs. Waterhouse (?).

  Mrs. A. P. Maslin.

  Then she glanced at her watch. Her room was at the back of the house and overlooked the grounds of the convent. There was not a light to be seen. Bed-time seemed depressingly early in that house of the religious, but she knew that the lay-sisters were up before half-past five and the choir-nuns before six every morning. She turned her back to the window and looked at the narrow bed which had been assigned to her, and speculated, not without sympathy, upon its last occupant, the half-witted lay-sister Bridget, asleep by now, she supposed, in the grim-looking Orphanage opposite.

  Suddenly she went to the door, opened it, and peered out into the passage. She could not have said that she had heard anything, yet some sort of signal had been transmitted to her conscious mind through one of her senses, and that, almost certainly, the aural one.

  A night-light was burning inside a small glass lantern, and Mrs. Bradley, though dimly, could see to the end of the passage. She waited, but a considerable interval elapsed before she made out a body, clothed in dark, bundled garments, flattened against the wall.

  “How are you, Sister Bridget, dear child?” she said. “Come along into your room and let’s have some cocoa and biscuits.”

  The motionless heap did not stir. Mrs. Bradley went inside the room again, but left the door ajar. She seated herself at the table and watched and waited. A quarter of an hour went by, and the room began to get chilly from the draught through the open doorway. Mrs. Bradley was beginning to think that she had been mistaken, and that it was not Sister Bridget outside, when the door opened very, very slowly, and the half-witted lay-sister, with her dead-white, puffy face, upon which was a calculating, slightly leering expression, and her shuffling, lop-sided walk, came inch by inch into the room. She seemed extremely nervous, and retained her hold upon the door. Still facing Mrs. Bradley, she shut the door behind her, and stood with her back to it, waiting.

  At this, Mrs. Bradley smiled—not her usual rather frightening grimace, but with a gentle kindliness which softened the brilliance of her eyes—and patted the armchair near her to encourage her visitor to be seated. Sister Bridget, leaving what she evidently felt was the friendly locality of the doorway, at last came sagging across the room with the heavy, ungainly movements of the mentally enfeebled, and seated herself in the chair. The cheerful little fire had been replenished by Annie before she went to bed, and Sister Bridget, leering with satisfaction, stretched out her hands to the warmth.

  Mrs. Bradley got up, without haste, and went over to a small hanging cupboard. From it she took biscuits and some sweets. Quiet and unhurried although she was in all she was doing, the lethargic lump in the fire-side chair watched her closely, following every movement with anxious, suspicious eyes.

  “There now,” Mrs. Bradley said, when she had arranged the sweets and the biscuits on plates. “We will settle down together and be comfortable.”

  So they ate the biscuits and sweets, and Mrs. Bradley boiled milk on the fire and made cocoa for her visitor. Then they began to talk. It did not take long to discover that, whoever might have knowledge of the events leading up to the death of Ursula Doyle, the poor half-wit knew nothing about it. Word associations, skilfully introduced into a rather one-sided conversation—for Sister Bridget ate too voraciously to have very much time for talking—produced nothing but negative results. Even a test which was given under light hypnosis (attempted and successfully concluded in about a quarter of an hour, the subject having previously become a little drowsy), failed to prove the slightest degree of guilty knowledge on Sister Bridget’s part concerning the tragedy.

  Mrs. Bradley had not thought that the lay-sister would be connected with the affair, but it was with a sense of thankfulness that she concluded her tests.

  Sister Bridget remained drowsy for a while, then slept for a bit. She woke with a little squeal of fear, apparently out of a bad dream, and was alarmed, for a minute or two, to find Mrs. Bradley in the room. Her lips slobbered, and she made passes as though to ward off attack. Mrs. Bradley talked to her quietly, and reassured her, and the lay-sister, leering pleasedly, suddenly gave a peculiar little call, and out of the corner of the room came a large, fat mouse. Its intelligent eyes took in everything, and at Sister Bridget’s command it swarmed from her dress to her shoulder, then sat on the corner of the mantelpiece. The half-wit gave it some biscuit which it nibbled with delicate grace; then it sat brushing its nose with a tiny paw.

  “What is its name?” Mrs. Bradley asked. When she had repeated the question twice, Sister Bridget replied that he was her brother. She was silent for a time after that, but Mrs. Bradley could see that she wrestled with words, and wanted to give voice to something which was almost beyond her capacity to express. Mrs. Bradley waited patiently, her bright black eyes on the bright black eyes of the mouse. She placed a bit of biscuit near it, but Sister Bridget snatched it up and ate it herself before the mouse could have it. Mrs. Bradley handed the next bit of biscuit to the lay-sister, and, with sly chuckles, Sister Bridget fed her pet.

  Suddenly, in her outlandish jargon, she began to talk. Her excitement was fearful to watch, and so were the contortions of her face and body. Mrs. Bradley found it impossible at first to grasp the essence of the outburst, but concentration plus a little imagination brought its reward. The mouse had nearly died. Something had nearly killed the mouse. The mouse had lain for dead. His little paws had been bent; he had lain on his back, his little eyes had been glazed and his tail had not moved even when Sister Bridget had slightly tweaked it. He had been dead. He had been dead. And then, like Lazarus, he had been alive. Both miracles, Sister Bridget apparently understood and firmly believed, had been worked by divine agency.

  Mrs. Bradley was almost as excited as the lay-sister, although not as obviously so, and not for the same reason. She began, very carefully, to lead the feeble mind back to the occasion on which the near-death of the mouse had come about. She did not want to suggest time, but thought it could do no harm to lead towards locality. Not immediately, but in a minute or two, she induced Sister Bridget to name the place in which she had found the mouse lying unconscious on the floor. The lay-sister, full of her subject, which had affected her deeply—so deeply that she had not (extraordinarily, considering her mental condition) forgotten the occurrence—took Mrs. Bradley’s hand and shambled, mopping and mowing, towards the door. Mrs. Bradley produced a small electric torch with her free hand from the deep pocket of her skirt, and switched it on as they reached the dimly lit corridor.

  Sister Bridget led the way to the bathroom immediately above that in which the dead child had been found—a curious mental aberration, Mrs. Bradley thought—and showed the exact spot on the floor where the mouse had lain unconscious. Mrs. Bradley focused the light of her torch upon the spot and took a very small box of drawing-pins from her pocket. She instructed Sister Bridget to press one into the floor on the spot where the mouse had lain. Then they went back to the bedroom and again fed the mouse, who had supplied the first direct evidence, apart from that produced by the medical examination of the body, that the gas supply in the bathrooms might be faulty or had been tampered with.

  Mrs. Bradley remarked, as together they watched the mouse:

  “What a pretty colour he is.”

  Sister Bridget agreed, took Mrs. Bradley’s hand and fondled it, mumbling affectionately. The suggestion as to colour aroused no reaction, and the evidence remained unconfirmed. Either Sister Bridget had not noticed, or the mouse had not produced, the usual symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Nevertheless, the clue, as a clue, remained.

  It was shortly after this that Sister Bridget decided to go to bed. She omitted every formality attendant upon this inclination except for removing her shoes, which were very muddy. Mrs. Bradley sat still until she
was sure that the lay-sister was asleep. She slept as nuns do—stretched flat upon her back in the bed, her old arms crossed on her breast, her loose-hanging mouth closed firmly. So she slept every night, and so she would sleep in death, Mrs. Bradley reflected. She turned out the gas, lighted a candle, placed it on the table and took up the documents again. A tap at the door made her turn her head. The door-handle twisted, and Mother Ambrose, still fully habited, although it was long past midnight, came noiselessly into the room.

  Mrs. Bradley got up and went towards her, carrying the candle so that it lighted her face. She thought that the nun was startled, but Mother Ambrose’s voice was calm and low-pitched as she said:

  “Sister Bridget is not in the Orphanage bedroom where we put her. I thought perhaps she might have wandered back here. She is greatly attached to this room.”

  “She is here asleep,” Mrs, Bradley observed, as she raised the candle to let its yellow glow illumine the lower part of Sister Bridget’s face. “What is more, she has been of material help to me.”

  “She told you about the mouse, I suppose,” Mother Ambrose surprisingly remarked.

  “You knew about the mouse, then?”

  “Certainly I did. Sister Bridget talked of nothing else for two days.”

  “Was the mouse—who discovered the mouse in the bathroom?”

  “You were going to suggest that the mouse was rendered unconscious by breathing carbon monoxide gas,” said Mother Ambrose. “How can I tell? It seems likely. As to who discovered it—Sister Bridget discovered it herself. It was fond of the bathroom. Sister Saint Jude spoke to Sister Bridget, because it would nibble soap, a habit which disgusted the guests and was expensive for the convent.”

  She folded her hands—a tall, Amazonian woman, military, faithful, and, to Mrs. Bradley, enigmatic—and waited, with the unique patience of her sisterhood. Mrs. Bradley chuckled, and then looked guiltily towards the bed. But Sister Bridget’s rest remained undisturbed.

  “And at what time in the day—I am assuming that it was on the day of the child’s death—did Sister Bridget find the mouse?”

  “The mouse was not found on the day of the child’s death, but on the previous Thursday, after Compline.”

  “If the mouse had been found on the Monday, I suppose you would have mentioned it to me?”

  “I think I might have done so. I cannot tell. It proves, of course, that the Gas Company were wrong, and that there must be an escape of gas in at least one of the bathrooms.”

  “I don’t think it proves that unquestionably, but we shall see. Did people continue to use the bathroom after the mouse had been found there?”

  “When we had heard Sister Bridget’s story, we made every effort to discover whether there was an escape of gas in the room, but we could not find one. We tried every joint in the pipes, for instance, with a lighted taper, and Annie and Kitty sniffed their hardest to detect the smell. There was nothing. Kitty, who is inclined to be nervous, declared several times that she could smell gas, but neither Annie nor I, when we tried, could agree with her. We thought it safe, therefore, to allow the guests to use the bathroom, but we put up a warning placard, advising them to keep the window open at the top.”

  “I am surprised that you did not mention all this to me,” said Mrs. Bradley. The nun bowed her head politely at the tone of rebuke, but said nothing in explanation of her omission. “Do your guests attend all the religious services?” Mrs. Bradley went on, after a very slight pause.

  “Neither the guests nor the children,” Mother Ambrose replied, in tones of imperturbable courtesy. “They may do so if they wish, of course, but we do not suggest nor particularly desire it. Of our spiritual exercises, only Compline is sung. Everybody here attends Mass. Mass is served by Father Clare, except during the visits of ordained priests of our own order. Father Clare, of course, is of the Order of the Society of Jesus.”

  Apparently deciding once again that she had sufficiently answered the question, Mother Ambrose retired into immobility again. Mrs. Bradley sighed inaudibly, and then remarked that she supposed that Mother Ambrose would be glad to go to bed.

  “What would you like to do?” Mother Ambrose asked. “I could wake Sister Bridget and take her back with me, and put clean sheets on the bed—”

  “By no means. Let me sleep in the Orphanage. I shall enjoy it,” Mrs. Bradley replied. So they went down the stairs and out at the front door together.

  The night was very dark and still. There was no sound to be heard except the distant wash of the sea at the foot of the cliffs, and the fall of their own footsteps as they walked to the gatehouse and pushed the iron gate open.

  “Compline is an evening service, I believe?” Mrs. Bradley observed.

  “We sing it at five o’clock,” the nun replied, “and, except at Pascal time, the Angelus bell is rung at six.”

  “At what time did Miss Bonnet leave the school on that Thursday?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

  “She is free to leave at four-twenty,” Mother Ambrose replied; but beyond this bare and uninformative statement she volunteered no further answer to the question, and Mrs. Bradley did not press the point. She waited whilst the nun both closed and locked the gates. She could not see the key, because the night was so dark, but she was interested to notice that Mother Ambrose seemed to have no difficulty in finding the lock.

  “I wonder what brought Sister Bridget to this pass,” she said, as Mother Ambrose fumblingly put back the key on a chain at her waist. “I suppose that she must have been of normal mentality when she was accepted as a lay-sister?”

  “Certainly. She suffered a considerable shock once when the part of the building in which she was working with two others caught fire, and the other two were suffocated. Sister Bridget was badly burned in trying to save them, and was very ill for months afterwards. When she recovered she seemed normal, but gradually lapsed until she was as you see her now. The curious feature is that she loves to play with matches.”

  Mrs. Bradley nodded. Shock had strange effects, and in the case of Sister Bridget must have upset the work of the thyroid gland. She had not had a similar case, and was interested.

  “I would like to undertake her case,” she said. “I am pretty sure she could be cured. How old is she?”

  “Sixty-seven.” The nun hesitated and then added: “She has been like this, afflicted, for twenty years.”

  They talked no more, for the Orphanage was in darkness and its occupants presumably asleep. Mrs. Bradley was shown into Sister Bridget’s room to find that the bed had been occupied and that the lay-sister, moreover, must have gone to bed in her muddy outdoor shoes.

  “Oh, dear!” Mother Ambrose exclaimed, and, despite Mrs. Bradley’s protests, she insisted upon entirely remaking the bed. Then, giving the counterpane a last twitch and the eiderdown a friendly and comradely pat, she bade Mrs. Bradley good-night, commended her to God, and disappeared with the same complete and ghostly celerity as that with which it appeared she had arrived at the guest-house bedroom.

  Mrs. Bradley went to bed and was glad to get there. The day had been extraordinarily fatiguing. Bessie came in in the morning with tea and toast.

  “Ah, Mother Saint Ambrose said you was here,” she pronounced, with extreme satisfaction. “That slobbering old—that Sister Bridget went and pinched your bed.”

  Mrs. Bradley cackled. There was something refreshingly unregenerate about Bessie. Excellent although she believed the training of the orphans to be in some respects, she hoped that it would not have the effect of altering Bessie’s high spirits and racy language. She considered her with a bright and bird-like eye over the rim of a cup of tea, and thought of her own youth, which had been spent in a village and had been guided, so far as religious matters were concerned, by the Church of England. She could hear the vicar, with his delicate emphasis on the personal aspect of Christianity…“Wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven!”

  “By the way, Bes
sie,” she said, as she lowered the cup. “I suppose Miss Bonnet was the first person to find the dead child in the guest-house?”

  Bessie’s uncomprehending stare was answer enough, she felt, without the characteristic reply.

  “Dunno what you’re getting at. Sounds as if you might be coming round to my point of view, after all. They done ’er in; I’ll always hold to it, poor little innocent kid.”

  CHAPTER 10

  QUESTIONS

  “Either his slippery knots at once untie

  And disentangle all his winding snare

  Or shatter too with him my curious frame.”

  ANDREW MARVELL: The Coronet.

  Annie was cleaning taps. She smeared on the polish very evenly, thinly, and carefully, and then rubbed with such energy and goodwill that the metal seemed to burst into sunshine underneath her hand. Mrs. Bradley watched her, and the girl, unconscious of her presence, worked on, her breathing a little laboured, her cheeks brightly flushed, and a stray quiff of hair hanging loose from her neat mob cap.

  “Good work, Annie,” said Mrs. Bradley pleasantly, as the girl gave up and began to screw the cap on the tin of polish. Annie, accustomed to the unheralded comings and silent going of nuns, looked round and smiled.

  “Good morning, madam. Did you sleep well at the guest-house?”

  “Not at the guest-house; here, in the Orphanage,” Mrs. Bradley replied, surprised that Bessie had not passed on the fact of her presence.

  “Really, madam?”