Mrs. Bradley said sympathetically that she supposed so, and reverted to the question of the cousins.
“I fear I did not urge you sufficiently strongly to get rid of them from the school,” she said. “I meant it most sincerely. They are a danger to themselves and to one another. I have no doubt that the grandfather’s great fortune is somehow at the root of the business, and I think you ought to act immediately. It is only because of the excitement and terror consequent upon the accident to Sister Bridget that nothing more has happened in the Doyle affair, I believe.”
“You speak of the accident to Sister Bridget,” said Mother Francis. “Are you convinced this time, then, that what happened was accidental?”
“I most certainly am,” said Mrs. Bradley with emphasis. The nun looked as though she were prepared to argue the point, and Mrs. Bradley was ready with an explanation of the presence of the hammer with which the aged sister had been struck. But all that Mother Francis asked her was:
“Then why did you insist upon our calling in the police?”
Mrs. Bradley replied:
“I thought it would do no harm in the village if the youths there learned that there was a point at which the police were prepared to act, and the convent to ask for protection.”
“I see,” said Mother Francis. She said no more, but Mrs. Bradley felt, not for the first time, considerable respect for the self-control of the religious. Anybody but a nun would have asked questions, she was certain. She glanced at Mother Francis, and then remarked:
‘“The blow was not intended for Sister Bridget. I am sure it was intended for me. Whoever set fire to the room did so with the intention of driving out its occupant, thinking that I still slept there. This person, whoever it was, did not know that Sister Bridget had been given her old room back again.”
She told Mother Francis then about the hammer-throwing incident in the nuns’ Common Room.
“I see,” said Mother Francis again. “I ought to remind you, however, that Sister Bridget loves playing with matches, and probably set her bed alight by accident.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Bradley replied. “But you will agree, I think, that she did not hit herself on the head with the hammer. Further to that, although, as I said before, it does no harm to let those youths feel that we are under the protection of the police, I think it unlikely that they had anything whatever to do with the attack. But the real culprit may as well be misled into imagining that we blame the youths, I think. By the way, did Mrs. Maslin arrive by car?”
“Yes, I believe she did. In fact, of course she did. She was angry, Sister Saint Jude told me, that we have no garage at the guest-house, and grumbled at the inconvenience and expense of garaging the car in the village.”
“I see. In church, on the evening when I had sat with you all in the Common Room—you remember?— and begged you to send those children home, there was a sound like a cough. You wouldn’t have noticed it, perhaps?”
Mother Francis’ eyes narrowed a little,
“Somebody started the engine of a car. I remember perfectly well,” she said. “It was just as the storm was rising. The wind was very loud. Our singing sounded weak and thin against it, and I thought of the might of God. I was born in the West Indies. We have great winds there.”
“You are a Frenchwoman, then?”
“Creole, yes.”
“Your colouring, surely, is unusual?”
“Oh, the English!” said Mother Francis. She laughed gaily. “You are so tolerant! Always you see the black blood! Creole! It does not always mean that, you know!”
chapter 16
chessboard
“The milky way chalked out with suns; a clue
That guides through erring hours.”
henry vaughan: Sunday.
« ^ »
Mrs. bradley walked over to the guest-house for Friday tea and brooded as she walked. Her suspicions had now become certainties, and yet there seemed nothing to prove that her theories were facts. The police clues ought, she knew, to be the two hammers, but the confused nature of the prints on tools which had been handled by dozens of people, and on which, in any case, her own prints were superimposed, since, except for the police, she had been the last person to handle the hammers, made the task of using finger-prints as part of the work of detection extremely difficult. It was rendered more difficult because, short of resorting to the somewhat crude expedient of getting all the people she had ever, even remotely, suspected of the murder to grasp a postcard between finger and thumb and then comparing the prints with all those found on the hammers, it was not easy to decide whether or not the weapons had been handled by the person she suspected. Even then, if this person (as was probable) could show reason for having had legitimate possession of the hammers at some time, that piece of evidence would automatically disappear. That was the worst of communal property, she reflected, and was an objection which would apply to almost everything on or in the convent buildings.
Tea, at the guest-house, was a formal meal, and the guests sat down at table, but Mrs. Bradley had a working arrangement with Annie, Bessie, Kitty and Maggie for having hers served in the kitchen. The girls liked the arrangement and enjoyed her company, and even Mother Ambrose, concealing her real feelings, allowed the two orphans who were not on duty in the guesthouse to sneak off on slight excuse from their other tasks to make a cheerful party of five in the guest-house kitchen. Mother Jude did not have any feelings to conceal, but, if she could fit it in with her other duties, she joined the party, eating nothing, but enjoying the conversation. A firm friendship, in fact, was growing and flourishing between Mrs. Bradley and the saintly, tubby little Hospitaller.
“I don’t reckon,” said Bessie, speaking first, for Mother Jude was not present, on this occasion, to be deferred to in the matter of beginning a conversation, “as you’ll ever find out who done it.”
“Why not, young Bessie?” enquired Maggie.
“Less of the young,” said Bessie. “You ain’t the the only one got a boy friend. She won’t, and she knows she won’t, because there isn’t anything whatever to go on, without the sisters tells her a damn sight more than they have.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Mrs. Bradley, startled. Bessie turned up her eyes and folded her hands in scandalous imitation of Mother Ambrose.
“What makes me? Ah, well, I’ll tell you. Look here, stands to reason. Young Maggie, turn down the gas under that there kettle and shove in a couple more spoonfuls. Seems to me they got everything to gain and nothing to lose by that kid being done in.”
“But she wasn’t done in! It was accident!” interpolated Maggie, going off to do as she was bid, for they all took orders from Bessie, Mrs. Bradley had noticed.
“Oh, was it? Well, then, what’s Mrs. Bradley still here for? Can’t you put two and two together? She wouldn’t still be here if it was accident! And who ’it that poor old kite on the ’ead with an ’ammer? And what’s that ferret-faced Maslin bitch still hanging about for round ’ere? You mark my words, and you, too, Annie, for all I suppose you’ll split on me later on to Mother Saint Ambrose, there’s more in this ’ere dope than meets the eye.”
“Go on, Bessie,” said Mrs. Bradley, calmly, watching her very closely.
“Garn!” said Bessie, suddenly on the defensive. “Like me to give meself away?”
“Why not, in the interests of justice?”
“Justice nothing! What’s justice! Seven years ’ard for taking what ought to be yours! Don’t talk to me! I’ve ’ad some! Wait till I gets out of here, and watch my smoke. Queen of the gangsters, that’s me.” She made a loud whooping noise, and cocked a snook, presumably at the innocence of her past.