The Religious Body iscm-1 Read online

  “Yes, Mother. It is something that cannot be hidden.”

  “Likes and dislikes?” put in Sloan quickly.

  The Mother Superior smiled faintly. “Neither are permitted here.”

  “You realise, marm,” he said more crisply, “that any—shall we say, disaffection—would be pertinent to my enquiry, and that my enquiry must go on until it determines how Sister Anne died.”

  She inclined her head. “Certainly, Inspector, but if we had any disaffected Sister here, or even one unable to subdue her own strong likes or dislikes, she would have been sent away. There are fewer locks in a Convent than the popular Press would have one believe.”

  Sloan looked up suddenly. “Has anyone left recently?”

  “Yes, as it happens they have.”

  “Who?” He should have been told this before.

  She looked at him. “I cannot see that the departure of a Sister from the Convent before the unhappy events of the past week can pertain to your enquiry.”

  “I must be the judge of that.”

  She gestured acquiescence. “Sister Lucy shall find her secular name for you. It was Sister Bertha.”

  “When did she leave?”

  “About three weeks ago.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I do not know.”

  “You don’t know?” echoed Sloan in spite of himself.

  “It was not properly our concern to enquire,” said the Mother Superior. “She felt that she could not continue in the religious life and asked to be released from her vows. This was done through the usual channels and she left.”

  “Just like that?” asked Sloan stupidly.

  “Just like that, Inspector.”

  He pulled himself together. “Had she any special connection with Sister Anne? Was she a friend of hers, for instance?”

  “Friendship is not permitted in a Convent. We are all Sisters here. She would have known Sister Anne to just the same extent as we all knew Sister Anne. No less and no more.”

  “And you knew she wanted to leave—as a Community, I mean?”

  “Yes, we knew she wanted to leave.”

  “If, marm,” he persisted, “Sister Anne had been in a similar frame of mind, do you think you would have known?”

  “Yes, Inspector,” she said with certainty. “You probably do not realise how close are the lives we lead here. Private life, in the usual sense, does not exist. One therefore becomes very aware of the thoughts, not to say the spiritual condition, of one’s Sisters. It is inevitable, and often does not even require formulation into words. Sister Anne, I do assure you, was not contemplating renouncing her vows.”

  Sloan and Crosby went back to Berebury Police Station. Sloan spread out on his desk the list of names that the Reverend Mother had given him. They had barely sat down when the telephone beside Sloan rang.

  “Yes. Speaking. Who?” It wasn’t a local call.

  “Jenkins,” said a voice. “You rang me in London yesterday, remember? About a family called Cartwright. You still interested?”

  “I am. Go on.”

  “I think you’re on to something, Inspector. Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons have made a move.”

  “Have they?” asked Sloan cautiously. “What sort of a move?”

  “Towards going public. It seems, and I think this will interest you—that they have had everything prepared for some time.”

  “Just waiting for someone to say the word?”

  “So it would seem,” said the London man. “These things take time, you know. Bankers to be instructed, brokers to be interested and so forth, to say nothing of organising some useful advance publicity. Sounds as if they’re going to chance their arm about the publicity build-up and go all out for speed. They’ll get a good bit from the Sundays, of course. They’ll be laying that on now.”

  “How much speed do they want?”

  “According to my informant, and he’s usually reliable,” said Jenkins, “applications will open at ten o’clock next Thursday morning and close at one minute past. I don’t know at what sort of figure but I dare say they’ll be over-subscribed. They’re a well-organised firm.”

  “You can say that again,” said Sloan dryly.

  “What’s that? Oh, yes, I was forgetting your end.”

  “So they’ll be a public company at one minute past ten next Thursday morning?”

  “That’s it. Provided they deposit the necessary Articles of Association, seals and what-have-you with the Registrar and comply with all the rules and regulations and keep up with their paper work.”

  “Oh, they will,” Sloan assured him. “They will. I don’t think we need worry about that.”

  “Going to put in for some?” asked Jenkins.

  “Some what?”

  “Shares.”

  Sloan laughed. “I’m not a betting man.”

  “There’s no risk,” said the other seriously. “Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons must be one of the safest firms in the industry.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about their carbons.”

  “No, no, of course not. There’s just one thing, Inspector, though. If you’ve got any reservations about the company and the City gets to hear about them before Thursday it’ll cost someone a great deal of money.”

  “And after Thursday?”

  “It’ll still cost a great deal of money but different people will lose.”

  “And that’s business?”

  “That’s business, Inspector.”

  “I think I’ll stick to police work.”

  “I should,” agreed Jenkins. “Much cleaner.”

  Sloan put down the telephone. “Curiouser and curiouser, Crosby. That needs a bit of thinking about.” He smoothed out the list of nuns for the second time. “Have you got the name of the one that got away?”

  Crosby produced his notebook. “Miss Eileen Lome, no fixed address…”

  “Surely…”

  “Last known address, then, sir.”

  “That’s more like it.”

  “144, Frederick Street, Luston. Sister Bertha that was.”

  “We must see her, Crosby, just in case she can tell us anything.”

  “Yes, sir.” The telephone rang again. Crosby answered it, and then handed over the receiver. “For you, sir, I think. I can’t quite hear who it is—it’s a bit faint like.”

  “Inspector Sloan here. Who is that?”

  “The Convent of St. Anselm, Inspector. It’s Sister Gertrude speaking. Can you come quickly, Inspector, please? It’s Sister Ninian. She was walking through the shrubbery…” the voice faded away.

  “What happened to her?” asked Sloan urgently.

  “Hallo, Inspector, are you there? This is Sister Gertrude from the Convent. It’s about Sister Ninian…”

  “I heard that bit. What has happened to Sister Ninian?”

  “Nothing, Inspector, not to her. To somebody else…”

  “What has happened?” shouted Sloan.

  “Another accident,” came the voice of Sister Gertrude distantly.

  “Listen carefully, Sister. Keep the lower part of the telephone in front of your lips while you are talking and tell me who the accident has happened to.”

  The answer came so loudly that he jumped.

  “We don’t know who he is.”

  “He? You mean it’s a man?”

  “That’s right, Inspector. He’s dead in the shrubbery as I said. Sister Ninian found him.”

  “This is very important, Sister. What sort of a man? Can you describe him?”

  “Oh, yes, Inspector, easily. Young, with curly hair, oh—and a few freckles. Do you know him?”

  Sloan groaned aloud.

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  « ^ »

  It was a subdued Polycarp who opened the grille and then the Parlour door, and a white and slightly shaking Sister Lucy who greeted them there. A young, silent Sister was with her.

  “Mother said to take you straight to the shrubbery, Inspector, as soon as you ar
rived.” The religious decorum was still there but it was wavering a little in the interests of speed. “It’s quickest if you come through the house and out through the garden room.”

  She led the way through the building, past the magnificent staircase, down the dim corridor where Sister Anne had died and through a door into the room of the flower vases.

  She turned a drawn face to him. “We don’t know what happened at all, Inspector. Or when.”

  He nodded without slackening his pace.

  “You probably haven’t met Sister Ninian, Inspector. She’s one of our older Sisters. She is very fond of gardening and she often takes a turn through the grounds to keep an eye on things. She was just walking along this path when she turned down here.”

  “Down here” turned out to be a narrow path running round the perimeter of the Convent grounds. Sloan caught sight of black-habited figures among the bare winter trees. They were clustered round a still form lying awkwardly half in and half out of some bushes.

  The Mother Superior turned when she heard him.

  “I fear he’s quite dead, Inspector.”

  Sloan stepped beside her and looked down. There was no doubt about him being dead. The freckles that Sister Gertrude had described must have been those on his arms. She couldn’t have seen them on his face. It was suffused with blood, a terrible, mottled red and blue. A bloated tongue stuck out between lips parted in the mocking rictus of death.

  “Strangulation,” he said briefly.

  “Inspector…” It seemed suddenly as if it was a great effort for her to speak. “Could this be William Tewn?”

  “What makes you say that, marm? Have you ever seen this boy before?”

  “No. No, never. Mr. Ranby came to see me this morning after you had gone. He brought two boys with him to apologise for the guy but he had been going to bring three. He said they couldn’t find William Tewn.” She stared at the supine figure. “He said he would send him over on his own whenever he turned up.”

  Looking down at the dead youth, Sloan felt suddenly old and tired. “Yes, marm, this is William Tewn. Now, could you all move away from here without disturbing the ground, please. It’s very important…”

  There was quite a gathering of nuns—Sister Gertrude, Sister Lucy, and three or four whom he did not know. He shepherded them gently back to the main path and left Crosby to rope off the area round the body.

  “Now, if someone would tell me what happened…”

  The story was Sister Ninian’s to begin with. She was a neat, sensible woman of about sixty, and economical of speech. “In winter, when it is fine, we all take some exercise before our midday meal. I do some of the gardening and make a practise of walking in a slightly different route each day. That way I can see things needing doing before they get out of hand. This path, as you can see, Inspector, runs round the entire Convent property. The Agricultural Institute is the other side of that field. Cows have been known to stray, and the branches of trees to fall. That is the sort of thing I keep my eyes open for.”

  Sloan nodded. Not, of course, for the bodies of dead man. That was chance.

  “I had just turned down this portion of the path when I noticed a shoe sticking out…”

  It was surprising, thought Sloan academically, how often it was a shoe that caught the attention. The soles of a pair of shoes were conspicuous in a horticultural setting.

  “I approached it and found the body. I came back along this path until I found two other Sisters—Sister Gertrude and Sister Hilda here. They came back with me to the spot, and then Sister Gertrude went back to the Convent to tell Mother.”

  “And I,” said the Mother Superior, taking up the tale, “asked Sister Gertrude to send for you while I came out here to see myself.”

  “Bringing Sister Lucy with you?” asked Sloan suddenly.

  She looked at him curiously. “No, Inspector, as it happened I did not bring Sister Lucy out here with me. I left her waiting in the Parlour to bring you here as soon as you arrived. Sister Gertrude came out here with the news that she had caught you at the Police Station and that you were on your way. We were exceedingly relieved to hear it.”

  Sister Lucy, then, had been white and shaking without having seen the body? He cast back in his mind to Thursday morning. She hadn’t reacted like that to the body of Sister Anne.

  “Mr. Ranby and the two students could scarcely have got back to the Institute,” said the Mother Superior, “before Sister Gertrude came in.”

  Sloan looked at his watch. “Were they with you long?”

  “No. The two young men said they were very sorry for their intrusion; Mr. Ranby apologised on behalf of the Institute and then they went. I had had to keep them waiting a few moments because of Mr. Cartwright.”

  “He was here, too, this morning?”

  “Yes, Inspector, he and Father MacAuley both came to see me after you left.”

  Sloan sighed. “I think we had all better go indoors, marm, and Crosby can take this all down. Besides, Dr. Dabbe will be here again in a minute or two.”

  “What?” howled Superintendent Leeyes. “I don’t believe it.”

  “He’s dead,” said Sloan flatly. “Strangled and dragged off the path and half under some bushes.”

  It seemed to Sloan that he had spent most of the last three days standing in the dark, draughty corridor where the Convent kept their telephone.

  “Tewn? Tewn?” said the superintendent. “That’s the one of the three that actually went inside the Convent for the habit, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  Leeyes used an expression that would have surprised the watch committee.

  “Yes, sir.” Sloan endorsed the sentiment, watch committee or no.

  “It would have to be him.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bitterly. “It would.”

  “How far did you get with him last night?”

  “Just that it was child’s play to walk in the cellar door and pick up the habit. No trouble they said.”

  “He must have seen something,” said Leeyes.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No hint of what it could have been when you spoke to him last night?”

  “Not a clue, sir. I’m pretty sure that those three arranged with Hobbett—he’s the handyman there—to leave the cellar door unlocked that night and the old habit inside. I don’t see any other possibility—there was no sign of forced entry. And it sounded as if everything went according to plan. Parker kept watch on their return to the Institute, Bullen guarded the cellar door and line of retreat and Tewn went inside.”

  “And so he dies.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Nasty, Sloan. I don’t like it. Though tell me this— if he’s going to be killed, why wait until today? It’s Saturday now, it was Wednesday when they went into the Convent…”

  Sloan thought quickly. “I didn’t know who he was until after nine o’clock last night. Someone else might not have known either…”

  “That’s true. Sitting waiting for him to be identified, and then, when he is, killing him.”

  “It would have been dark in that cellar on Wednesday night,” conceded Sloan. “No one could have recognised him.”

  “What about today?” asked the superintendent heavily.

  “I’ve only seen the Mother Superior so far. And the Sisters who were with the body when I got here. She says that the Principal had arranged for all three students to come across with him to say they were sorry for Wednesday’s escapade but that Tewn just didn’t turn up. Ranby was a bit put out apparently and said he would send Tewn over on his own later.”

  “No wonder he didn’t come.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m going straight round there as soon as I’ve seen Dr. Dabbe. I’m going to need all the information he can give me…”

  It wasn’t a great deal.

  Sloan stood beside the pathologist out in the shrubbery.

  “Strangulation,” agreed Dabbe. “Not manual. I think it’s a bit of fuse
wire but I can’t be sure. The skin’s too engorged. Over your head in a flash, a quick jerk and that’s that.”

  “Vicious.”

  “Neat and clean,” said Dabbe‘. “And certain. Quiet, too. No time for a shout, you see. Not that there’s anyone to hear out here, is there?”

  They looked round the silent grounds.

  “Convent, that way,” said Sloan. “The Institute, the other. Neither in earshot.”

  “No nuns about at the time?”

  “They’re not let out until twelve. For their constitutional. There’s Hobbett, their gardening factotum. He would have been out in the grounds somewhere…”

  That wasn’t the pathologist’s concern and he was soon back with the body.

  “Killed on this path, would you say, and dragged into the bushes by the armpits? You can still see where the jacket has been pulled up. His heels made a couple of scuff marks, too.”

  Sloan peered down at the last pathetic imprints made by one William Tewn, student.

  “A good place really,” went on the pathologist. “He only had to be pulled a yard or two and he’s practically invisible in all this growth. And whoever did it remembered to stand on that dead wood. Doubt if you’ll find a footprint there, and the path’s too hard.”

  “Crosby’s tried,” said Sloan, “and he couldn’t pick up anything. When did it all happen?”

  The pathologist looked at his watch. “Not more than two hours ago—say three at the very outside…”

  “After half past nine then…”

  “And not less than an hour ago—an hour and a half more likely.”

  “It’s not half past twelve yet. That would make the outside limits somewhere between half past nine and half past eleven, only he wasn’t available just after eleven when the Institute party set out, so that makes it earlier than eleven, doesn’t it?”

  But abstract speculation wasn’t of interest to the pathologist either. Of all men his work was to do with fact, with demonstrable fact.

  “Perhaps I’ll be able to narrow it down for you later,” he said cautiously.

  Sloan nodded and asked the question on which everything hung. “Any clue—any clue at all as to who could have done it?”