“I’m glad to hear it, miss,” responded Sloan.
“Or should I say ‘mysterious’? It’s because he thinks I should mind. But I know his boys get up to all sorts of things. They wouldn’t be boys if they didn’t, would they? I don’t think the Sisters would mind either if they did hear about it—they’re perfectly sweet, you know, and so—sort of balanced, if you know what I mean. You feel they are finished with the petty, trivial things that don’t matter. It isn’t as if it was a demonstration against them or anything. Nobody minded them coming to Cullingoak, and we had to do something with the house. In fact, I think people are glad they’re there in a way.”
“Celia thinks their sanctity balances out the devilment in my young men,” said Ranby lightly, matching her tone, “but I’m not so sure myself. Until last night I wouldn’t have thought they were even aware of them. We hear their bell on a clear day—that usually provokes a crack or two about getting the cows in—but nothing more.”
“What about last night?” asked Sloan.
“No news, Inspector. None of my staff knew anything about the guy.”
“You have other means of finding out?”
“Naturally. I can if necessary interview the whole lot, but that takes time. I was hoping to appeal to them at supper tonight—it’s the first meal that they will all be at together. I have already checked that no one had a late pass on Wednesday night.”
“Is that infallible? My experience is that it isn’t as a rule.”
“Rumour has it the Biology Laboratory window can be persuaded to open if pressure is judiciously applied in the right place.”
“I’ll get my constable to fingerprint it straight away.”
“You really want this chap, don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Sloan shortly. “We do.”
Strelitz Square was still a square in the sense that its Georgian creator had intended, and there was still a garden in the middle. The houses were tall, dignified and—most significant of all—still lived in. Number Seventeen was on the north side, facing the thin November sun. Sloan and Crosby rang the bell at exactly ten-thirty the next morning. An elderly, aproned maid answered the door.
He didn’t mention the Convent this time. “Detective-Inspector Sloan,” he said, “would be obliged if Mrs. Cartwright would spare him a moment or two.”
The woman looked them over appraisingly and then invited them in. She would enquire if Mrs. Cartwright was at home.
“Funny way of carrying on,” said Crosby.
“You’re in Society now, constable, and don’t you forget it. Plenty of money here.” Sloan looked quickly round the room into which they had been shown. “Pictures, china, furniture—the lot.”
Crosby fingered a finely carved chair. “Is this fashion, sir?”
“It was,” said Sloan, “about two hundred years ago. It’s antique, like everything else in the room.” He pointed to a set of Dresden shepherdesses. “They’ll be worth more than your pension. Don’t suppose they picked up that walnut bureau for five bob either or those plates…”‘
“Good morning, Inspector.” An elderly figure appeared in the doorway, “Admiring my Meissen? Charming, isn’t it?”
“Good morning, madam,” said Sloan, not committing himself about the Meissen, whatever that was.
Mrs. Cartwright was old, ramrod-backed and thin. She rested a claw-like hand on the back of the chair just long enough for Sloan to see the battery of rings on it and then she sat down. She was dressed—and dressed very well indeed—in grey with touches of scarlet. Sloan searched her face for a likeness to Sister Anne but found only heavy make-up and the tiny suture marks of an old face-lift. Her hair was a deep mahogany colour and the total effect quite startling.
“You have something to say, Inspector.”
“Yes, madam.” Sloan jerked his mind back. She must be over eighty, and he thought he had bad news for her. “I understand you had a telephone call yesterday afternoon from the Convent of St. Anselm.”
Not a muscle on her face moved.
“And that you refused to take that call.”
“That is so.” Her voice was harsher than he expected.
“Why, madam?”
“Is it anything to do with you?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“Really, Inspector, I can see no reason why…”
“You had a daughter there.”
Mrs. Cartwright rose and walked towards a bell by the fireplace. “I have no daughter.”
“One moment, madam. You are quite right…”
She stopped and looked at him.
“You have no daughter. But you had one.”
She stood rigidly in front of the fireplace and said , again in a well-controlled voice, “I have no daughter.” She put her finger towards the bell.
“Mrs. Cartwright!”
“Well?” Her finger was poised.
“You had a daughter called Josephine Mary.”
A spasm of emotion passed across her face. “Inspector, I lost my daughter thirty years ago.”
“Lost her?”
“Lost her. She left me, she left everything.” Mrs. Cartwright waved a painted fingernail round the room. “Abandoned. Moreover, Inspector, her name has not been mentioned in this house from that day to this. I see no reason to discontinue the habit. Now, if you will either state your business or leave.”
“When did you last see her, madam?”
‘The day she left home.”
“Thirty years ago?”
“Thirty-one. She was eighteen and a half.”
So Sister Anne had been forty-nine. She hadn’t looked as old as that.
“And you, madam, hadn’t seen her yourself since then?” Sloan hoped he was keeping the wonder out of his voice.
“Not once. I told her that she needn’t expect me to visit her. And I never did.”
“Had—have you any other children?”
“She was the only one, Inspector, and she left me. She was a convert, of course. Nothing would persuade her. Nothing.” The old eyes danced. “She wanted to eschew the World, the Flesh and the Devil, Inspector, and she did. At eighteen and a half, without knowing anything about any of the three of them. I hope she’s enjoyed it, that’s all. Being walled up with a lot of other women praying all day long instead of getting married and having children. What’s she done, Inspector? Run away after all these years?”
“No, madam.”
“Because if she has, you needn’t come looking for her here.” There was a gleam of satisfaction in her voice. “She wouldn’t come back here, Inspector. I can tell you that. Not if it was the last place on earth.”
“No, madam, it’s not that at all…”
“Don’t say she’s done something wrong! That I would find hard to believe. I shouldn’t imagine you arrest many nuns, Inspector, but if she was one of them I must say I would derive a certain amount of amusement from the fact. She was so very pious.”
“I’ve come to tell you that she’s dead.”
The old mouth tightened. “She died as far as I’m concerned the day she left home.”
“And that she was probably murdered.”
“Poor Josephine,” she said grimly. “She didn’t escape the wicked world after all then, did she, Inspector?”
They were back in Berebury by lunchtime.
“Get anywhere?” asked Superintendent Leeyes.
“I don’t know,” said Sloan. “Can’t say I blame her for leaving home. I’d have gone myself. Mother hasn’t seen her for thirty years—or so she says anyway.”
“Check on that.”
“Lots and lots of money there.”
The superintendent’s head came up. “Is there now? Check on that, too, Sloan. Money is a factor in the crime equation.”
“Yes, sir.” Last winter the superintendent had attended a course on “Mathematics for the Average Adult.” It had left its mark.