“Who inherits?”
“I’ll find out.”
Leeyes looked sharply across at him. “It could be the Convent, I suppose?”
“Not now she’s dead, would you think?”
“Perhaps not. It would be interesting to know if she would have inherited had she lived. This mother—is she old?”
“Very. And she wouldn’t have made her the sole heir—not from the way she was talking.”
“Cut off with the proverbial shilling, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
Leeyes granted. “She mightn’t have had any say. She a widow?”
“Yes.”
“Where does cousin Harold come in then?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Find out then, man. It could be important.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And find out who gets it if the Convent doesn’t. That could be important, too.” He drammed his fingers on the desk. “I don’t suppose you’ll get out of anyone at the Convent what sort of dowry Sister Anne brought with her.”
“Dowry?”
“Gifts in money or kind brought to a marriage contract, Sloan. They have the same custom when a girl goes into a Convent. In India it’s a couple of cows or some sheep. My father-in-law gave me some dud shares.”
Sloan flushed. There had been a pair of brass candlesticks that his wife had brought from her home, ugly as sin, that had dominated the mantelpiece of their best room all their married life. “I know what you mean, sir. I’ll try to find out.”
“Of course,” said Leeyes, off now on a different tack, “this lot may have taken vows of perpetual poverty or something idiotic like that.”
“I hope not,” said Sloan piously. “Upset all the usual motives too much, that would.”
“What’s that? Yes, it would. We must hope that they haven’t done anything so foolish.”
Sloan went back to his own room.
Crosby came in. “Dr. Dabbe wants to talk to you, sir, and there’s a message from the Convent.”
Sloan lifted his head. “Well?”
“Please may they have their keys back?”
8
« ^ »
An unused knife, fork, spoon and table napkin marked the place at the refectory table where Sister Anne had sat for most of her religious life. Sister Michael and Sister Damien sat on either side of the gap—the one professed immediately before Sister Anne, and the other immediately after. It was the midday meal and the Reader was pursuing her way through the Martyrology.
The vicissitudes of the early faithful seemed to be as nothing compared with the trials of working through today’s pudding. A reasonable stew had been eaten with the relish of those who have been up since very early morning, but today’s pudding was obviously different.
Custom decreed that it should be eaten (many a martyr had died of starvation—or poison); their creed forbade criticism. So fifty-odd nuns struggled with a doughy indefinable mixture lacking the main ingredients of a sweet course.
Sister Cellarer was at the Parlour door immediately the meal was finished.
“Mother, I hope I am lacking in neither ingenuity nor humility but I find it exceedingly difficult to cook without the basic essentials.”
“Not ingenuity, my child. No one could say that.”
Sister Cellarer flushed. “It’s quite impossible to…”
“Nothing is impossible, Sister. It may be difficult but impossible is a word no true religious should use lightly.”
“No, Mother.” Sister Cellarer lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry…”
“As to humility, I’m not sure.” The Mother Prioress contemplated the hot and ruffled cook. “Did you feel the Community would blame you for the shortcomings of our dinner? If so, Sister, I suggest you examine your motives in complaining. I think if you look at them closely you will find an element of pride. Pride in personal skill is a dangerous matter in a Convent. All work and skill here should be offered to our Lord from whom our strength to do it comes. The sin of pride is not one I should have to look for in you.”
A diminished Sister Cellarer was on her knees. “I ask forgiveness, Mother. I should have thought.”
The Mother Prioress waved a hand. “May God bless you, Sister. As it happens I have sent a message about the keys, but it may well be that we will not have them yet. I can see that the police would need to know if they had any significance.”
“They didn’t have anything to do with Sister Anne at all,” said Sister Cellarer. “Sister Lucy lent them to her just for the evening.”
“I have told them that,” said the Reverend Mother patiently, “but until they know how it was that Sister Anne died I think they are justified in retaining them.”
Sister Cellarer rose. “Of course,” she said soberly. “That is what matters. Poor Sister Anne. It doesn’t seem possible that only the day before yesterday none of this had happened at all.”
“The day before yesterday seems a very long time ago now.” The Mother Prioress gathered her habit up preparatory to going somewhere at her usual speed. “Will you ask the Sacrist to come to see me in the Chapel, and the Chantress, too, if she’s about?”
Sloan got Dr. Dabbe on the telephone.
“Sister Anne died from a depressed fracture of the skull,” said the doctor, “caused by the application of the traditional blunt instrument. She had a postmortem fracture of her right femur almost certainly caused by the fall down the cellar steps, and also sundry haematoma…”
“Heema what?”
“Bruises. Also mostly caused after death. You don’t bleed much then, of course.”
“No.”
“I would say she was hit from behind and slightly above—perhaps by someone taller.”
“Man or woman?” asked Sloan eagerly, and got the usual medical prevarication.
“Difficult to say, Inspector. She wasn’t hit so hard that only a man could have done it—on the other hand there were unusual features. The coif, for instance, and the complete absence of hair. It was a heavy blow, but in a good position with a wide swing it wouldn’t have been out of the question for a woman—especially a tall one.”
“Weapon?”
“You want to look for something round and smooth and heavy.”
Sloan flipped over a page of his notebook. “Time of death?”
“Between six and seven night before last.”
“When?”
“I can’t tell you to the minute, you know. Let’s put it this way—she had been dead approximately sixteen to seventeen hours when I saw her just after eleven o’clock yesterday morning.”
“But they have supper at quarter past six and—”
“She’d had supper,” said the pathologist laconically. “She died on a full stomach, if that’s any consolation to anybody. The meal was quite undigested. Shouldn’t have fancied it myself. Too many peas.”
Sloan turned back to his notebook. “But she was at some service or other—I’ve got it here—Vespers—at half past eight.”
“Not if she had steak and kidney pudding and peas at six-fifteen,” said the pathologist. “The process of digestion had barely started. I’ll put it all in writing for you.”
“Thank you. This alters some of my ideas.”
“Post-mortems usually do.”
Sloan set down the telephone receiver very thoughtfully indeed.
Sister Polycarp satisfied herself with a quicker scrutiny this time. “It’s yourself, Inspector. And the constable. Come in. You’ll be wanting the Parlour, I suppose?” She shut the grille and appeared in person through one of the doors. “This way. Mother Prioress is in the Chapel but Sister Lucy will see you.”
They followed her through to the Parlour.
“I don’t suppose you show many men through these doors,” ventured Sloan tentatively.