St. Peter's Finger mb-9

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Got at?”

  “You never know what these unprincipled people will say. They ask the most innocent children dreadful questions.”

  “A thing I’ve wondered,” said Mr. Maslin, suddenly lowering the paper, and again enunciating with the clearness which his wife was finding so embarrassing, “is…”

  “Don’t,” said Mrs. Maslin, snapping him off. “I shall go down again to St. Peter’s as soon as I’ve had another talk with Grogan and Grogan. I want to know how we stand before I see the Mother Superior again.”

  “I suppose you’ve cabled your father-in-law?”

  “No, not yet. It can make no difference to him.”

  “I thought he was fond of the child.”

  “The Mother Superior cabled him, of course.”

  “Oh, I see. He does know.”

  Mrs. Maslin made no reply. Then she said:

  “Of course it means that, if Ulrica enters, the money comes straight to Mary.”

  “I don’t see that at all.”

  “Timothy Doyle would never let all that money go to the Church!”

  “We can’t tell what he will do. Do you mean you think he’ll disinherit Ulrica?”

  “You must see to it that he does. In any case, I shall see that Grogan and Grogan fight the girl to a finish if she dares to claim the money on Timothy’s death! You will have to stand up for your own child’s rights in this! Her mother was Timothy’s daughter. I can’t do any more.”

  “We had better go over and see the old boy, I fancy. Word of mouth is the best way of communicating some ideas. I don’t believe, any more than you do, that he’d like his money to go to the Church as the dowry of a nun. And go and take Mary away, Nessa, if you like. She can come to New York and we’ll let her make her impression on the old chap. He hasn’t seen her since she was quite a baby, and she’s not a bad sort of kid.”

  “And, after all, her mother was his only daughter!” said Mrs. Maslin, emphasising the point.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Maslin, dealing with this observation as briefly as possible. He had liked his first wife better than he liked his second. “But let me remind you, Nessa, that’s it’s no good to force the old boy. I met him once, and I know what I’m talking about. I don’t say there isn’t a chance, because, after all, Ursula was the kid he was really fond of. Her father, Michael Doyle, was the apple of the old chap’s eye, and he nearly pegged out when Mick was killed. He’s never thought for an instant of the money coming to Ulrica, or, for the matter of that, to Mary. I should say there’s an even chance to upset the will. But if once he gets the impression that you’re trying to get him to alter it in Mary’s favour, you might as well buy your ticket home and catch the next boat to Southampton, for he’s as obstinate as a mule. Look how he stuck to that Ming vase, when the police were after it as stolen property.”

  “But he didn’t steal it, Percival. He knew he was perfectly safe. And over in New York, too. After all, it was only in England that all the fuss was made.”

  “But the police knew jolly well that whoever had bought the thing had bought it cheap, and knew it to be stolen! He’d have been in an awkward fix if they’d ever traced it to him.”

  “Well, they didn’t, and there you are.”

  “That’s what I say. You can’t rattle him. If we do go across, and I think it’s a pretty good plan, all things considered, you leave the talking to me. Even if he divided his money between them there’d be a nice lump for Mary. He’s done pretty well, the old coper!”

  chapter 4

  athlete

  “My unwashed Muse pollutes not things divine.”

  thomas carew: To my worthy friend, Master George Sandys, on his translation of the Psalms.

  « ^ »

  Mrs. bradley slept well, on a bed neither hard nor soft, in a room where the window would not open. The sheets were rough and smelt of lavender, and the floor was linoleum-covered except for a strip of what seemed to be discarded stair-carpet which had been placed by the side of the bedstead.

  A little maid woke her in the morning and offered her tea and toast.

  “A nice morning,” she remarked, as she set down the tray on a table near the head of the bed. She arranged Mrs. Bradley against pillows and carefully shut the door, which all night long had been left wide open.

  “Did you leave the door gaping all night?” she enquired, returning to the bedside. She cut the toast into fingers, and brought the tray to the bed. “Can you balance it? There! That’s clever.”

  Mrs. Bradley cackled.

  “Air, child,” she said. “The window doesn’t open.”

  “And why should it? Night air is no manner of good to anyone. Would you not fear to be murdered in your bed? I could never sleep with the door gaping, come what would! I’d sooner be smothered, I know.”

  “Smothered?” said Mrs. Bradley. “Has anybody ever been murdered on these premises?”

  “Lord, no, I hope not! Oh, what a dreadful idea!”

  “It was yours,” said Mrs. Bradley, sipping tea.

  “Oh, no! I’m sure, then, it wasn’t. But you can’t help thinking things, with all you see and hear.”

  “You mean the convent?”

  “Ah, that I do.” She sat down, folded her hands in a sociable manner and leaned forward, prepared to gossip. “Such goings-on, I can’t tell you. Some poor little maid poisoned in her bath, so they do say.”

  “When? Lately?”

  “Come a week. Happened last Monday afternoon, the poor little dear.”

  “I suppose there had to be an inquest?”

  “That’s the scandal of it.”

  “What were the findings?”

  “Soocide! A little dear of that age! As if she’d think of such a wicked thing! Of course, the coroner couldn’t speak against the convent.”

  “Oh? I didn’t understand. But how do they know she was poisoned?”

  “It’s common talk in the village. One of the schoolchildren brought it home to her dad, and he’s tooken her away and put her to the High School over to Kelsorrow. And I reckon other parents ’ull do the same. I know I would if I had a little dear there.”

  “People nearly always exaggerate when they write or talk about convents. I don’t think we have the right to assume what has not been proved,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  “Can’t get over Gunpowder Plot, though, can ’ee?” This reference to a deplorable historic event, the second she had heard since first she had taken up the case, roused Mrs. Bradley to retort,

  “But what about 1829?”

  “I dunno,” said the little maid cautiously, treating this date with respect. “But the name of the people is Waller, and they live in one of they little bungalows just this side of Hiversand Bay, and for why should they take their child away and send her to a school all that way off, if there wasn’t sommat nasty going on? More tea? I’ll pour it. Happen you might have an accident, awkward like, if you pours it out settin’ up in bed.” She poured out the tea with motherly good nature and then went to the window and looked out.

  “Some of they lads over Brinchcommon way enjoyed theirself Saturday night when they had a couple of beers or so inside ’em,” she volunteered, turning her head.

  “You mean they made a demonstration?”

  “Ah, I should just say they did. Oh, it were a mess up there at the convent, too; and rude words writ on the gate, and dirt put into the letter-boxes, and songs sung and all of them yowling like wolves. Would a-frit me into a fit if I’d been there. We could hear it, too, from this house, and that’s a mile away, and see the sky rockets, nearly a hundred of ’em, all of ’em yowling like wolves,” pursued the little maid, composing the hooligans and the sky-rockets into an Elizabethan medley of fire and terror. “But then, come yesterday early morning, all the mess was cleared up, and you wouldn’t have known, bar a couple of windows broken, that anybody went there that night. Wonderful tidy the nuns are, and Tom Shillen asleep in his bed, and nobody able to wake him to put on his helme
t and go and owst they lads. Be you going to eat that toast? Another cup? I’ll take it all off of you, then, and you can have a nice half-hour before you needs to get up. Breakfast don’t be before nine.”

  Hiversand Bay, Mrs. Bradley discovered, exploring by car a little later, was reached by a secondary road which branched off north and a point by east across the moors and avoided the convent which was left away to the west. The small seaside resort was still in process of development, and most of the houses and bungalows not directly facing the sea were not finished or else still for sale. The shops, small, single-fronted lock-ups, were new, for the most part, too, and enquiry at the first of them, a butcher’s, produced the exact address of the Wallers.

  Mrs. Waller was at home, and the little maid who opened the door left Mrs. Bradley on the front doorstep whilst she went in search of her mistress. In a minute both came to the door.

  “Says she would be glad of a word,” Mrs. Bradley heard, as they came from the kitchen towards her. Then the little maid retreated, and Mrs. Bradley was left face to face with the lady of the house. Mrs. Waller was a large, benevolent woman in horn-rimmed glasses which, at the moment, were clouded by kitchen steam. She removed them, revealing kindly, protruding eyes.

  “I can’t think who you are, but come in, do,” she said with brisk hospitality. “Everybody comes to see us now we live near the sea. You’ll have to excuse the house. You know what it is, Monday mornings.”

  “I ought to tell you,” said Mrs. Bradley, “that I am not proposing to claim acquaintance with you, Mrs. Waller. In fact I can make no possible claim at all, either on your time or your hospitality.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to buy anything,” said Mrs. Waller, looking disappointed.

  “No, I have nothing to sell. I had hoped to get some information from you, that is all.”

  “Oh—you mean about taking Ellie away from the convent?”

  “It can’t be as easy as this,” thought Mrs. Bradley.

  But it was. Mrs. Waller had had the reporters and she had loved them. Even when she knew that Mrs. Bradley did not write for the papers she was still interested in her visit, and took her into the drawing room and produced, with the little maid’s help, various “elevenses,” including a wine cocktail ready mixed and purchased in bottle, biscuits, chocolates, sherry, small home-made cakes and a bottle of ginger wine.

  “Of course, I don’t say I welcome it, poor child, but if I’ve said to Stanley once that a convent wasn’t the place for Ellie, I’ve said so ninety-nine times. You see it isn’t though we’re Catholics, and she’ll learn all the deportment, and all the French, too, that she’s ever likely to need, at Kelsorrow High School. I said, too, that she needs her games, does Ellie, and although the convent grounds are very lovely, it’s hardly like hockey and cricket.”

  “And so, when you heard of that poor child’s death, you removed your daughter from the school?”

  “Well, what do you think? She came home full of it. ‘Oh, mother,’ she said, ‘whatever do you think? A girl called Doyle—not Ulrica Doyle, but her cousin, Ursula Doyle—has committed suicide at school, and Ulrica, who’s quite old—in the Fourth Form—had hysterics and had to be taken to the sick-room by Mother Francis.’ It was just like one of those horrid things in the papers. Well, of course, this has been in the papers. I gave five or six interviews myself. ‘You ought to be on the films, mother,’ Ellie said.”

  “Are you sure that Ellie mentioned suicide on the very day it happened?“ asked Mrs. Bradley.

  “That was the story that all the girls had got hold of. Strange it should turn out right. I always say to Stanley that children know more than we think. According to Ellie, this girl was never in trouble at school, and last week she had done something wrong—most unusual for her—and the nuns, or some of them, were angry. She was such a sensitive little thing, it seems—no parents, and her old grandfather in America with all that money to leave—it really does seem most sad. So Stanley withdrew all his arguments, and the High School had a place because a girl went back to India— a little Indian girl—always wore the native dress, so pretty, isn’t it, and graceful?—so down went Ellie, on their books, and this morning off she goes on her bicycle to Kelsorrow, just as pleased as Punch. ‘I’m sick of that old convent, mother,’ she said. ‘The nuns are ever so sweet, but we only have Miss Bonnet four half-days a week, and the Kelsorrow girls get her all the rest of the time; and another physical training mistress full time as well.’ Miss Bonnet takes the physical training, you know. Stanley doesn’t agree with so much of it for girls, but, as for me, I love it. I go to Kelsorrow every week myself, for the League of Health and Beauty. It keeps me cheerful, and Ellie and I do all our practice together. ‘Oh, mother!’ she said, the first time she saw me in shorts. But now she’s got quite used to it.”

  “I’m interested to hear that the girls themselves concluded that Ursula Doyle committed suicide. Were the punishments at the convent very severe?” Mrs. Bradley said, as Mrs. Waller sat back and sipped her drink.

  “Well, I shouldn’t call them anything at all, and Ellie always said they made her hoot. Of course, she’s very non-suggestible. I mean, it’s the atmosphere does it. I mean, actually, I believe, they just lose a badge which all the good girls are entitled to wear, but it’s the atmosphere. And not being allowed to be in the processions, I believe, that’s another thing; and not being asked in to sing and recite to the nuns while they do their mending. ‘Good Lord, I shouldn’t want to,’ said Ellie’s little cousin when she came down here for Christmas, but Ellie, who, mind you, as I said, is simply most non-suggestible, said, ‘Oh, yes, you would want to. They make you want to want to, whether you want to or not.’ And, of course, they do creep about, and that always gets on children’s nerves, I think. I’ve always said to Ellie, ‘Make a noise. When you’re making a noise I know what’s happening. If you’re quiet you’re probably in mischief.’ And I never found myself far wrong.”

  There seemed nothing more to glean, but Mrs. Bradley felt that to take too early a departure would be unkind. When she did get away the car crawled slowly along the coast road and discovered three-quarters of a mile of promenade, untidy at the ends, and a café or two, closed at that season, for Easter was some weeks off and there was scarcely a visitor in the town. Mrs. Bradley did not care for Hiversand Bay, and directed George to drive on. They inspected Kelsorrow, a respectable market-town about a dozen miles farther east, and then Mrs. Bradley announced her intention of turning about and presenting herself at the convent.

  Six miles on the road George stopped the car in the middle of open moorland because Mrs. Bradley thought that they would be too early, and sat on a boulder and smoked whilst his employer strolled off to take the air and admire the rolling scenery. Whilst both were thus occupied, a small car, driven fast, shot by, two wheels on the road and two on the heather, and suddenly pulled up. The driver, a stocky young woman of medium height dressed in a tweed three-piece suit and a little suède hat, got out, slammed the door, and came briskly up to George, who rose and saluted.

  “In trouble?” the young woman asked, in a deepish, self-confident voice.

  “No, thank you, miss.” He looked at her with respectful interest, and continued, “Just killing time, because my employer thought she might be a bit too early at the convent.”

  “The convent? Oh, they’ve finished lunch, if that’s what you’re thinking of. I’ve just had mine there, so I know. I believe they’re full up, though, at the guest-house; or has your employer booked her room?”

  “I couldn’t say, miss. We’re lodging, just at present, in the village.”

  Mrs. Bradley came up to them.

  “I hope you’ve booked your room,” said the young woman, extending a hand. “Friends of the nuns are friends of mine. I think they’re simply splendid at that convent. Marvellous people! So simple and sweet, I think. Of course, I happen to get on rather well with them, working, as I do, for half-pay.” She laughed loudly, stridently a
nd unconvincingly.

  “Interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley. “A strange life, don’t you think, though, that of a nun?”

  “Shouldn’t care for it myself. But there’s no doubt some are called to it.”

  “I met a man yesterday who thought the life iniquitous.”

  “Men will think anything. Thank goodness I’ve no use for them.”

  “Still, a man,” said Mrs. Bradley reasonably, “would have seen that a geyser was properly installed.”

  “Geyser? What do you mean? Of course it was properly installed! They had the Gas Company down to look at it the very same day, as soon as they had got the child out of the bath.”

  “No flue, then, I imagine.”

  “But there was a flue. Look here, are you a reporter?”

  “No, no. The case was in the papers and I cannot accept the suicide theory, that’s all. I suppose you were at the convent when it happened?”

  “Well, I ought not to have been, but I was. Look here, I don’t in the least know who you are, but I suppose, if you’re not a reporter, it’s all right, and you’re bound to hear gossip if you’re staying in the village. We—I mean the convent—have had a lot of trouble. There are some perfectly bloody people living round about here. After all, a child who intends to commit suicide will do it wherever she is. The fact that this little idiot, poor wretch, was at a convent, makes no earthly difference.”

  “So you were actually on the premises when it happened?”

  “Kelsorrow School, where I do the P.T., had a day’s holiday. I hadn’t enough money to do anything decent, so I thought I might as well put in the time at the convent. That’s how it was, and a jolly good thing it was so, too, in a way.”

  “What do you mean, I wonder?”

  “Artificial respiration. No stone unturned. Worked over the child until the sweat streamed off me. Nobody could have done a better job. No go. Child quite finished. Been dead, the doctor said, at least three quarters of an hour—probably more—before we found her. That was accidental, too. I’d been playing netball with the orphans, and felt pretty sticky and grubby, so I asked Mother Jude for a bath. The kid was in it, of course, and a good old smell of gas. No window open. I flung open the window and we picked up the kid and took her into the nearest bedroom and there I got to work on her at once, but it wasn’t a bit of good. Nice child, too, in her way—which wasn’t mine.”