“There are the orphans. ”
“I know. Some of the older ones are awful.”
“Motive?”
“I know. But—well, take Bessie. I can imagine her doing no end of wicked things.”
“What makes you think it was murder? Why can’t the death have been accident?”
“Because somebody must have taken her into the guest-house. She never would have gone there alone.”
“I see.”
They walked on in silence. Then, down one of the paths, they encountered a nun. Ulrica curtsied and smiled. The nun and Mrs. Bradley exchanged dignified, grave little bows.
“That’s Mother Mary-Joseph. She’s quite young and a perfect dear,” said Ulrica, when the nun had passed out of earshot.
“Yes. I have met her. She teaches English, doesn’t she?”
“Ever so well. We’re all thrilled. We’re doing Macbeth this term. It was set for Schools last year, and Mother Mary-Joseph thinks that by the time our form takes Schools it will be time for Macbeth again.”
“Macbeth?” said Mrs. Bradley. Ulrica looked at her expectantly, but Mrs. Bradley had no more to say. They turned out of the nuns’ garden and were going back towards the school when they came to a small wooden hut. Mrs. Bradley asked what it was.
“It’s the handicraft centre,” Ulrica Doyle replied. “Do you want to go inside? It isn’t particularly thrilling, but visitors usually go over it. Mother Saint Simon-Zelotes doesn’t like it if they don’t. She spends all her spare time in there, copying the chalice and the paten. We are all excited about it. They’re very old, you know.”
“Is that where they make those charming silver vases and metal ash-trays which I saw in the guesthouse, I wonder?”
“Yes, but it’s very noisy, with hammering and all the other work going on. Still, they do make some nice things. But it’s Mother Saint Simon-Zelotes’ own work that you really want to see. The nuns here haven’t many treasures, and can’t afford beautiful things, and so they make them. My grandfather wanted to buy the chalice and paten—they’re thirteenth and fourteenth century—but Reverend Mother Superior wouldn’t part with them. She said that some day the convent might have to let them go, but that that day had not yet come. We’re longing to see Mother’s work. She was an artist in metal-work—ever so famous, I believe—before she joined the Community. Do you really want to go in?”
“I particularly want to go in,” said Mrs. Bradley. “I greatly admired the art room and the laboratory.” The handicraft centre was far enough from the main building to ensure that the sound of hammering did not reach the classrooms, Ulrica went on to explain as they went inside. There were three benches, each under a window with a rack of tools above it and drawers and boxes by the side. The nun in charge was a briskly cheerful middle-aged woman with a face which looked as though it had been newly scrubbed. She had good teeth, a short, aggressive nose, and large, very fine, strong hands. Mrs. Bradley recognised her at once, and, to her pleasure, addressed her by the name she had borne in the world.
“We do not forget our artists,” she said, with a startling cackle of laughter. She paused where two girls were working.
“It should be three to a bench, but that poor child, Ursula Doyle, it is her place that is vacant,” Mother Simon-Zelotes explained. “The eight girls in this room are half the form. I have half of them, and the other half take theory of music with Sister Saint Gregory and Latin with Sister Saint Benedict. Then we change over to-morrow. Last week I did not take them. I did my own work instead.”
The girls began to put away their tools. It was the end of the first period of afternoon school. Ulrica took Mrs. Bradley back to Mother Francis.
“I wish you would give me a copy of the school timetable, and a list of the teachers’ duties and free time,” said Mrs. Bradley, when Ulrica, having curtsied to both of them separately, had gone.
“I have them ready. I anticipated that you would require them,” Mother Francis observed, as she handed them over.
Armed with these, Mrs. Bradley was escorted back to the guest-house by Ethel and handed over to Annie.
“I want you to ask Mother Saint Jude to let me have that list of the guests who were staying here last week, Annie,” Mrs. Bradley said, “and I want their home addresses. Perhaps she has put those down beside the names, but just in case she hasn’t—”
“Very good, madam. We got you a room ready, madam, as we weren’t sure whether you were going to stay here or not.”
“Is there a room to spare?”
“We’ve put Sister Bridget in the Orphanage. She won’t mind.”
“I don’t like to turn out Sister Bridget.”
“She really won’t notice, madam. She’s very biddable and harmless. She never notices nothing, except the matches, which we generally keep out of sight, and her little mouse.”
Annie went off to get the list of guests and their home addresses, and Mrs. Bradley was making notes when Bessie entered abruptly and rather rudely, and announced that she had been sent by Mother Saint Ambrose to show Mrs. Bradley her room.
“I’m glad I don’t sleep here meself,” she observed sincerely, as they passed the door of the bathroom in which the dead child had been found. “Frightened of ghosts, I am, and I bet she walks of a night.”
“I thought that Catholics didn’t believe in ghosts?”
“You got another think coming. ’Course they believe in ’em. What’s done can’t be undone. It’s only common-sense, after all.”
With this majestic retort, Bessie led the way along a landing to a door marked with a black number seven.
“You got a lucky number, anyway,” she said. “Old Sister Bridget would have this room with a seven. Young Maggie’s been give the job of painting it on the door of her cubicle over the Orphanage now, to let her think she’s at home. Seems more than a week ago that that there happened, don’t it?”
“I cannot say, Bessie,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “Is there any means of sending to Blacklock Tor for my things?”
“Father Clare would give the word at the pub, if you asked him. He’s over here now with Reverend Mother Superior. Daresay he’ll stay to supper. He often do of a Monday. Nothing much at the Presbytery, I suppose. ‘’
“Does that mean that he was here last Monday, then?”
“Course he was. What you think? Didn’t he go with our little ’uns to the pictures? No more pictures for us till after Easter, Mother Saint Ambrose’s orders. Who do you like the best? Somebody ’ighbrow, I suppose?”
“Katherine Hepburn,” said Mrs. Bradley, after a suitable pause for thought.
“Ginger Rogers for me. Oh, boy! She’s lovely! Her and Fred Astaire! See her and Hepburn act in that one about the chorus girls and that? That bit where Ginger gets lit! Oh, glory, didn’t I laugh! On the Q.T. I see that. Supposed to be hout on an ’ike. Only Annie knowed, and she wouldn’t tell. Not bad, old Annie isn’t.”
“Oh, Bessie,” said Mrs. Bradley, suddenly interrupting, “how long after Annie did you go into that bathroom?”
“Me? I never went in. You can’t pin nothing on me!”
“Why do you use that expression? The little girl committed suicide, didn’t she?”
“Did she? Let them as think so fry in their fat, I says.”
“But it was you who suggested to me how cruelly treated the children were, and how natural it was that they should be driven to dreadful deeds.”
Bessie seemed taken aback, and for once had no answer ready.
“So you didn’t go into the bathroom at all,” said Mrs. Bradley, in gentle, musing tones. Bessie glowered suspiciously.
“Suppose I said I did?”