The Religious Body (4 page)

“Speak up, Sloan, I can't hear you.”

“Sorry, sir, I'm speaking from the Convent. The telephone here is a bit public.”

There was a grunt at the other end of the line. “Like that, is it? Devil of a long time you've been coming through. What happened?”

“This nun is dead all right. Has been for quite a few hours, I should say. The body's cold, though the cellar's pretty perishing anyway and that may not be much to go on. I'd like a few photographs and Dr. Dabbe, too.…”

“The whole box of tricks?”

“Yes, please, sir—she's lying at the foot of a flight of stairs with a nasty hole in the back of her head.”

“All right, Sloan, I'll buy it. Did she fall or was she pushed?”

“That's the interesting thing, Superintendent. I don't think it was either.”

“Not like the moon and green cheese?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Either it is made of green cheese or it isn't.”

“N—no, sir, I don't think so.”

“If it's not one of the two possible alternatives then it must be the other, always provided, of course, that …”

Sloan sighed. Superintendent Leeyes had started going to an Adult Education Class on Logic this autumn and it was playing havoc with his powers of reasoning.

“I've left Crosby down in the cellar with the body, sir, until Dr. Dabbe gets here.”

“All right, Sloan, I know when I'm being deflected. But remember—failure to carry a line of thought through to its logical conclusion means confusion.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, what was this woman called?”

“Sister Anne,” said Sloan cautiously.

“Ha!” The superintendent ran true to form. “Perhaps she
didn't
see anyone coming, eh?”

“No, sir.”

“And her real name?”

“I don't know yet. The Reverend Mother has gone to look it up.”

“Right. Keep me informed. By the way, Sloan, who found her in the cellar?”

“I was afraid you were going to ask me that, sir.”

“Why?”

“You're not going to like it, sir.”

“No?”

“No, sir.” Unhappily. “It was Sister St. Bernard.”

The telephone gave an angry snarl. “I don't like it, Sloan. If I find you've been taking the micky, there's going to be trouble, understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Sloan …”

“Sir?”

“If you expect that to go in the official report, you had better bring that little barrel of brandy back with you.”

Sloan waited for Dr. Dabbe at the top of the cellar steps and wished on the whole that he was back at the girls' boarding school. He could understand their rules. Not long afterwards the police surgeon appeared in the dim corridor, ushered along by a new Sister.

“Morning, Sloan. Something for me, I understand, in the cellar.”

“A nun, doctor. At the bottom of this flight of stairs.”

“Aha,” said Dr. Dabbe alertly. “And she hasn't been moved?”

“Not by us,” said Sloan.

“Like that, is it? Right.”

Sloan opened the door inwards, disclosing a scene that, but for the stolid Crosby, could have come—almost—from an artist's illustration for an historical novel. The two attendant Sisters were still there, kneeling, and the dead Sister lying on the floor. The solitary, unshaded electric light reflected their shadows grotesquely against the whitewashed walls.

“Quite medieval,” observed Dabbe. “Shall we look at the steps as we go down?”

“There's not a lot to see,” said Sloan. “Several of the nuns and the local G.P., Dr. Carret, went up and down before we got here, but there is one mark at the side of the seventh step that could be from her foot, and there is some dust on the right shoe that could be from the step. On the top of the shoe.”

“Just so,” agreed Dabbe, following the direction of the beam from Sloan's torch. “Steps dusted recently but not very recently.”

The Sister with them coughed. “Probably about once a week, doctor.”

“Thank you.” He glanced from the step to the body. “Head first, Sloan, would you say?”

“Perhaps.”

“I see.” The pathologist reached the bottom step, nodded to Crosby, bowed gravely in the direction of the two kneeling nuns and turned his attention to the body. He looked at it for a long time from several angles and then said conversationally, “Interesting.”

“Yes,” said Sloan.

“Plenty of blood.”

“Yes.”

“Except in the one place where you'd expect it.”

Sloan nodded obliquely. “The photograph boys are on their way.”

“I know,” Dabbe said blandly. “I overtook them.” The pathologist was reckoned to be the fastest driver in Calleshire. “Notwithstanding any pretty pictures they may take, you can take it from me that whatever this woman died from, she didn't die in the spot where she is now lying.”

“That,” said Sloan, “is what I thought.”

If anything Sloan appeared relieved to see another man in the Parlor.

“Our priest, Inspector—Father Benedict MacAuley.” The Reverend Mother's rosary clinked as she moved forward. “I asked him to come here as I felt in need of some assistance in dealing with—er—external matters. Do you mind if he is present?”

“Not at all, marm. I have left the police surgeon in the cellar. In the meantime, perhaps you would tell us a little about the … Sister Anne.”

Sloan wouldn't have chosen the Convent Parlor for an interview with anyone. It was the reverse of cozy. The Reverend Mother and Sister Lucy disposed themselves on hard, stiff-backed chairs and offered two others to the two policemen. Father MacAuley was settled in the only one that looked remotely comfortable. Sloan noticed that it was the policemen who were in the light, the Reverend Mother who was in the shadow, from the window. Vague thoughts about the Inquisition flitted through his mind and were gone again. The room was bare, as the entrance hall had been bare, the floor of highly polished wood. In most rooms there was enough to give a good policeman an idea of the type of person he was interviewing—age, sex, standards, status. Here there was nothing at all. The overriding impression was still beeswax.

The Reverend Mother folded her hands together in her lap and said quietly, “The name of Sister Anne was Josephine Mary Cartwright. That is all that I can tell you about her life before she came to the Convent. We have a Mother House, you understand, in London, and our records are kept there. I would have to telephone there, for her last address and date of profession. I'm sorry—that seems very little …”

Sister Lucy lifted her head slightly and said to the Reverend Mother: “She was English.”

“As opposed to what?” asked Sloan quickly.

“Irish or French.”

“Frequently opposed to both,” said the Reverend Mother unexpectedly. “When all else is submerged, that sort of nationality remains. It is a curious feature of Convent life.”

“Indeed? Now we had a message this morning …”

“That would be from Dr. Carret. He is so kind to us always. We sent for him at once.”

“When would that have been, marm?”

“After Office this morning. We didn't know about last night.”

“What about last night?”

“That she might have been lying there since then.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Dr. Carret, Inspector. He said that was what had probably happened.”

“I see. But you didn't miss her?”

“Not until this morning.”

“When?”

“The Caller, Sister Gertrude, found her cell empty this morning. She thought first of all that she had merely risen early, but as she was not at breakfast either she mentioned it to the Infirmarium.”

“Then what happened?”

“After Office the Sister Infirmarium went to her cell to see if she was unwell.”

“And?”

“She reported to me that her cell was empty.”

“Had her bed been slept in?”

“I do not think Sister Infirmarium would have been in a position to know that. All the beds are made by the Sisters themselves …”

“It might have been warm.” Sloan shifted his weight on the hard chair. “You can usually tell with your hand even if the bed has been aired—especially in winter.”

The Mother Superior's manner stiffened perceptibly. “I do not suppose such a procedure occurred to Sister Infirmarium.”

“Of course not,” appeased Sloan hastily. Did he imagine the priest's sympathetic glance? For all he knew “bed” might be a taboo word in this Convent—in any Convent. Probably was. He took refuge in a formula. “I should like to see Sister Inf … Infirmarium presently. And this Sister Peter.”

“Ah, yes, Sister Peter.” The Reverend Mother's eyes rested reflectively on the inspector. “The blood seems to have appeared on her thumb before Mass, and some of it was transferred to the Gradual during the service.…”

“You left it?” interrupted Sloan.

“Yes, Inspector,” she said gently, “we left it for you.”

“What did you do when you were told about the blood and that Sister Anne was missing?”

“I asked Sister Lucy here to help look for her.”

“Just Sister Lucy?”

“At first. A Convent is a busy place, Inspector.”

“Yes, marm, I'm sure”—untruthfully.

“When their search failed to reveal her in any of the places where she might have been expected to have been taken ill, I asked other Sisters to go over the house and grounds very carefully.”

“I see.”

“This is a big house and it took some time, but, as you know, Sister St. Bernard opened the cellar door and put the light on … you will want to see her, too, I take it?”

“Yes, please, marm.”

“We telephoned Dr. Carret and he came at once. It was he who was so insistent on our leaving her lying on that cold floor.”

“Very right, marm.” He answered the unspoken reproach as best he could. “I'm afraid this will be a police matter until we find out exactly what happened. Tell me, marm, at what time would everyone have gone to bed last night?”

At the boarding school it had been “lights out.”

“Nine o'clock.”

“And after that no one would have gone into anyone else's bedroom.…”

“No one is allowed in anyone else's cell at any time except the Caller, who is Sister Gertrude, the Infirmarium and myself.”

“I see. Presumably no one checks that the Sisters are in their cells?”

“No.”

This was not, after all, a boarding school.

“I am seeking, marm, to establish when Sister Anne was last seen alive.”

“At Vespers at half past eight.”

“By whom?”

“Sister Michael and Sister Damien. Their stalls are on either side of Sister Anne's.”

“And you can tell me of nothing that might have caused Sister Anne to leave her cell last night?”

“Nothing. In fact, it is forbidden.”

That, decided Sloan, settled that. For the time being.

“I see, marm, thank you.” He stood up. “Now, if you would be so kind as to get in touch with your—er—head office …”

“Inspector …”

“Yes, marm?” Sloan was ready with a handful of routine phrases about inquests, postmortems and the like.

The Mother Prioress's rosary clinked. “It is one of the privileges of Convent life that strangers do not perform the Last Office. We always do that for our own Sisters ourselves.”

It was something that he had never considered.

CHAPTER FOUR

The cellar was quite crowded by the time Sloan and Crosby got back there. Two police photographers had joined the unmerry throng and were heaving heavy cameras about. Dr. Dabbe was still contemplating the body from all angles. The two Sisters were still praying—and the photographers didn't like it.

“Hey, Inspector,” whispered one of them. “Call your dogs off, can't you? Giving us the creeps kneeling there. And getting in the way. I want some pictures from over that side but I'm blowed if I'm going on my knees beside them.”

“It might give them the wrong idea, Dyson,” agreed Sloan softly. “They don't know you as well as I do.” He glanced across the cellar. “They're not upsetting the doctor.”

“He's a born exhibitionist. All pathologists are and nothing upsets him. Nothing at all. I sometimes wonder if he's human.” Dyson screwed a new flash bulb into its socket. “Besides, I don't want those two figuring in any pix I do take. Or I'll be spending the rest of my life explaining that they're not ravens from the Tower of London or the Ku Klux Klan or something.”

“Too much imagination, Dyson, that's your trouble.”

Nevertheless, he went back upstairs and found Sister Lucy.

“Certainly, Inspector,” she said, when he explained. “I will ask the Sisters to continue their prayers and vigil in the Chapel.”

Sloan murmured that that would do very nicely, thank you.

At a word from her the two Sisters in the cellar rose from their knees in one economical movement, crossed themselves and withdrew.

“That's better,” said Dyson, changing plates rapidly. “It's our artistic temperaments, you know, Inspector. Very sensitive to atmosphere.”

“Get on with it,” growled Sloan.

Dyson jerked a finger at his assistant and crouched on his knees in a manner surprisingly reminiscent of that of the two nuns. Instead of having his hands clasped in front of him they held a heavy camera. He pressed a button and, for a moment, the whole cellar became illumined in a harsh, bright light.

A moment later the pathologist came up to him.

“I don't know about Mr. Fox over there,” said Dr. Dabbe, “but I've finished down here for the time being. I've got the temperature readings—did you notice she was in a draught, by the way?—and all I need about the position of the body. It's cold down here but not damp. At the moment I can't tell you much more than Carret—a good chap, incidentally—that she died yesterday evening sometime. The body is quite cold. You'll have to wait for more exact details—which is a pity because I dare say it's important …”