“The plumber,” said Polycarp tartly. “Can’t do without him, and the doctor. He comes to see old Mother Thérèse.”
“What about the Agricultural Institute? Do you have any visitors from there?”
She shook her head. “That we do not. Young limbs of Satan, that’s what students are.”
“What about Mr. Ranby?”
“Oh, he came the other day to see about the wedding. I took him through to the Parlour to talk to Reverend Mother and the Sacrist. We haven’t had a wedding here before, you see. I think Mr. Ranby comes to the Chapel, too, but of course I hadn’t seen him before.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
She stared at him. “The grille. Across the Chapel. Haven’t you been in there?”
“Yes, I saw the grille.”
“Well, the Community sits in front and then there’s this screen and then the public.”
“So you can’t see them?”
“Naturally not.”
“And they can’t see you?”
“Of course not. That wouldn’t be proper, would it?”
“Therefore you have no idea at all who comes in at the back?”
“Except that they are local people who always come —no. I open the side door before the service and lock it up afterwards.”
“Every time?”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Every time, Inspector. And I do a round of doors and windows last thing at night.”
“When would that be?”
“Eight o’clock.”
Sloan reckoned he had been in short trousers when eight o’clock had been “last thing at night.”
“And Hobbett?”
“He comes and goes according to his work and the weather. He has his own key to the boiler room.”
Polycarp shut the Parlour door behind them.
Crosby tapped the bare, polished floor with his foot and pointed to the plain walls. “Bit of a change from Strelitz Square for that Sister Anne.”
“I expect that’s why she came.”
Sister Lucy came into the Parlour with Sister Gertrude. They bowed slightly, then sat down, hands clasped together in front, and looked at him expectantly.
Sloan undid a brown-paper parcel he had brought with him.
“This habit. Can you tell me anything about it?”
Sister Lucy leaned forward, and Sloan got a good look at her face for the first time. The bone structure was perfect. He didn’t know about Sister Anne, but Sister Lucy would have cut quite a figure in a drawing-room. He tried to imagine hair where there was only a white coif now. With Sister Gertrude it was easier. Hers was the round jolly face of a “good sort,” the games mistress at a girls’ school, the unmarried daughter…
“Yes, Inspector, I think I can.” Sister Lucy’s voice was quiet and unaccented. “This is the spare habit that we keep in the flower room. Should any Sister get wet while out in the grounds she can slip this on instead while she asks permission to dry her own habit in the laundry. It is kept behind the door on a hook.” She turned it round expertly. “You see, here is the hook. It is very old and worn now, but none the less blessed for that.”
“Thank you, Sister. Now take a look at these.”
“Sister Anne’s glasses!” Sister Lucy and Sister Gertrude crossed themselves in unison.
“You both confirm that?”
The two nuns nodded. Sister Lucy said, “She wore particularly thick glasses, Inspector. I think she is the only member of the Community with them as thick as that.” Her hand disappeared inside her habit and emerged again. “Most of us wear glasses like these. For reading and sewing, you know, but Sister Anne had poor eyesight. She couldn’t see anything at all without her glasses.”
“Thank you, Sisters. You have been very helpful.”
They acknowledged this with another slight bow. (“Like talking to a couple of Chinese mandarins,” said Sloan later.)
“Now I would like to tell the Mother Prioress where they were found.”
“She is in the Chapel,” volunteered Sister Lucy, “arranging the Requiem Mass for Sister Anne. And the Great Office of the Dead. When a Sister dies violently there are certain changes in the responses and so forth.”
Sloan permitted himself a bleak smile. “That can’t happen often.”
“On the contrary, Inspector. We sang just the same service at Midsummer.”
“You did? Who for?”
“Sister St. John of the Cross.”
“Why?”
“She was hacked to death with a machete.”
“What! Where?”
“Unggadinna.”
Sloan breathed again. “That’s different.”
A faint chill came into the atmosphere. “Not so very different, Inspector, for us.”
“There was Mother St. Theobald, too, just after Easter,” put in Sister Gertrude diffidently. “I was a novice when she was professed so I remember her well. She died in prison, you know, in Communist hands.”
“We assumed,” said Sister Lucy astringently, “that she died violently, though we have had no exact details yet.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sloan awkwardly.
“And, of course,” persisted Sister Lucy, “there are members of our Order who were in China. We have no means of knowing whether or not they are accomplished among the elect.” They rose. “We will see if Mother has finished in the Chapel…”
Crosby stirred in his hard chair. “Funny thing, sir. They don’t ask any questions. Most people would have wanted to know where you got those glasses and that gown thing, wouldn’t they?”
“Unless they knew.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
The Mother Prioress came back with Sister Lucy. “You have news for us, Inspector?”
“I don’t know if it is news or not, marm, but we think Sister Anne was murdered.”
He was conscious of Sister Lucy’s sharp indrawn breath, but the Reverend Mother only nodded.
“No, Inspector, that is not news. Father MacAuley had already intimated to me that Sister Anne died an unnatural death. He has also told me about last night’s bonfire.”
“Sister Lucy has just identified the habit and Sister Anne’s glasses.”
“How very curious that both should be found on a guy at the Agricultural Institute. Do you connect them with Sister Anne’s death?”
“I can’t say, marm, at this stage. The glasses were hers, she couldn’t see without them; she was killed on Wednesday evening, and on Thursday evening they were found on this guy.”
“If,” said the Mother Prioress slowly, “the whole episode of the guy had been an anti-papist demonstration we, as a Community, would have been aware of feelings against us. After all, they are quite common. Sisters in our other Houses have them to contend with—but not without knowing the feelings existed. Hate is so very communicable. Mr. Ranby would have known, too, I think.”
“Granted, marm. But somebody took both the old habit and the glasses.”
She inclined her head. “It would seem that the world has been to us or that one of us has been into the world.”
Sloan had reached this conclusion himself the evening before and turned to another matter.
“Going back to Sister Anne, herself, marm, can you tell me anything about her? As a person, I mean.”
The Mother Prioress smiled faintly. “We try so very hard not to be persons here, you know. To conquer the self and to submerge the personality are part of our daily battle with ourselves in the quest for true humility. I would say that Sister Anne, God rest her soul, succeeded as well as any of us.”
“Er—yes, I see.” It was patent that he didn’t. “Now about her actual death. Did anyone stand to gain by that?”
“Just Sister Anne.”
“Sis…”
“It is part of our conviction, Inspector, that all true Christians stand to gain by death.”
He smiled weakly. “Of course. But apart from Sister Anne herself?”