“Even so,” said Mrs. Bradley, “they should not, on any account, be shown publicly, even to the Bishop, until Thursday.” She glanced at the nun, and, yielding to an impulse similar to the one which once before had caused her to gratify what she felt must be the intense, but unexpressed curiosity of hot-blooded, energetic, repressed and self-controlled Mother Francis, she added, nodding: “Ulrica Doyle is to sail for New York on Wednesday. When she is gone, all will be well. Don’t, please, tell anybody that.”
“I will say nothing. You regard Ulrica, then, as the root of the troubles?” She did not sound at all surprised, Mrs. Bradley noticed.
“She will be much better out of the way,” Mrs. Bradley answered.
Nobody knew better than Mother Francis, who had given a good many similar answers in her time, how far from the point of the question this reply was. She folded her hands in her sleeves, bowed slightly, smiled with a warm red mouth which no training could make anything but sensuous and sadistic, and said nothing else at all, but walked beside Mrs. Bradley out of the hall and along the dim, cold corridor to her room.
“You will have Ulrica watched, will you not?” said Mrs. Bradley, before they parted, the one to deal with school stock required for the coming term, the other to telegraph her son that his charge was safe at the convent. “She ought to be under the supervision of at least two people all the time.”
George drove her to the Kelsorrow post-office.
“Letter follows,” she telegraphed to her son, after indicating that Ulrica was safe. Having sent off the telegram she obtained a letter-card, and wrote immediately, remaining in the post office to do so:
“dear ferdinand,
“This in a great hurry, as I do not want to be absent from the convent for a minute longer than I can help between now and Thursday. Ulrica came back on a milk train like Mr. Wodehouse’s heroes, and arrived here before the opening of morning school. Do not worry about her. I had overlooked the point that we have no Catholic church in the neighbourhood at home. I wish, if you can manage it, you would put Ulrica on to the boat at Southampton on Wednesday. I will send her in charge of two of the sisters, who will make certain that there is no hitch. It is absolutely essential that she should leave this country on Wednesday. A train gets into Southampton Docks at three, and the ship, the Swan of Avon, sails at a quarter to five. Do be there to meet the train. If you can’t do it, please wire me.”
She sealed the letter-card and dropped it in the post-box, then sent a second telegram to cover the information in it.
“Meet Ulrica 3 p.m. Wednesday Southampton Docks for s.s. Swan of Avon. Bradley.”
She prepaid a reply to this, and then went back to the car and told George to drive as fast as he could to the convent. They arrived at the gate-house at just after eleven o’clock. This suited Mrs. Bradley’s purpose admirably. She was admitted by the lay-sister portress, and Kitty, who loved excitement and did not mind running about, was sent to Mother Francis with notice of her arrival. This was a new arrangement, and everybody entering the convent grounds was to be subject to it.
It was a clear, bright day, fairly windy but not at all cold, and Mrs. Bradley strolled round the school gardens. Then, attracted by the sound of a voice giving crisp commands, she entered the school field and walked over to watch Miss Bonnet giving a physical training lesson to the sixth form. Miss Bonnet saw her, and waved. Mrs. Bradley waved back, but remained away from the class so as not to disturb the lesson. At a little distance stood the two nuns on supervisory duty. So it must all have looked, Mrs. Bradley reflected, on the Monday that the child was found dead. The setting, the time-table, the silent, black-robed observers—all would have been the same. She wondered at what point, and through what agency, the child could have received the urge to go to the guest-house. The nuns would have been out of the way—even the lay-sister portress had been at Vespers—the guests from the guesthouse had gone out, except for poor Sister Bridget, the orphans on duty in the guest-house had been shut away in the kitchen, even the old gardener, who might otherwise have been working in the grounds and so have seen the child sneak by, had been round at the front of the guest-house putting creosote on the fence.
It had been an ideal opportunity, and somebody had taken every advantage of the fact. Still brooding on this, Mrs. Bradley walked across to the metal-work shed. No one was there. Mother Simon-Zelotes was in the school laboratory teaching science, and all the girls who made a hobby of metal-work and woodwork were at lessons. The key was in the door, and Mrs. Bradley turned it and went in. The place was in workmanlike order, the floor clear of filings and shavings, the tools all put away or placed to hand on the racks above the benches. In a small, glass-fronted wall-cupboard stood the copies of the paten and chalice. Mrs. Bradley went up to them. The cupboard hung in a good light, and without opening the doors she could inspect the side of the chalice which presented itself, and the whole of the upper face of the paten. The work had been beautifully done. She could not have told, from looking at them, that they were not the original vessels. Mother Simon-Zelotes must be one of the cleverest craftsmen in England, she thought. She took a small lens from her pocket, opened the cupboard doors, and, without touching the objects, examined them through her little magnifying glass without revising her opinion. Mother Simon-Zelotes had done a first-class job, and Mrs. Bradley’s heart warmed fully towards her because of it.
The nun herself came in at the conclusion of morning school, her science overall voluminous over her habit, and found Mrs. Bradley still there.
“You like them?” she said.
“They are good beyond praise. ”
“I thank you. It is kind of you to say so. ”
“Tell me—would it be possible for you to confuse the pairs?”
“The new with the old? Me, no. Others—.” she smiled, and waved a large, finely-made hand—“I must not be guilty of the sin of pride, but I think perhaps they might, if they were not quite expert in these things.”
“Then you mean that if somebody were to play a little joke, and, when the things are exhibited, change the cards round, some people might be taken in?”
Mother Simon-Zelotes chuckled, a nice, fat, pleasant sound, but refused to answer. Entirely satisfied, Mrs. Bradley went over to the guest-house to have lunch. Ferdinand, to her astonishment, was one of the guests. Mother Jude herself hovered round him in the parlour before the meal was served, and informed his mother that he had had a long and tiring journey, and that she was going to make special arrangements for him to have a good afternoon sleep in one of the bedrooms after lunch.
“But what are you doing here, child?” Mrs. Bradley enquired, when the rotund little nun had gone to superintend the serving of the meal.
“Came to see my protégée whom I did not succeed in protecting,” he replied. “I’m awfully sorry about that, mother, but I’m afraid it never occurred to me that the girl would try to get back. For one thing I’d no idea that she’d got any money.”
“What was that about an attack on the car as you were going to Wandles that night?”
“Oh, that? Some form of hysteria, I imagine. Perhaps she thought we’d have to return to the convent if she was ill.”
“You’re quite sure she wasn’t attacked?”
“Oh, perfectly certain.”
“But you were asleep, George said.”
“Oh, well, yes, I may just have dozed off. I believe I did, now you mention it. But, mother, we were doing about fifty when it happened. She must have done it herself.”
“You are right, probably; but I’m keeping a watchful eye on her—or, rather, my deputies, two lynx-eyed sisters are. Come along; there’s the gong, and we mustn’t be late for grace.”