“When you got the habit, what next?”
“Bullen and I brought it back with us. I kept it in my room until yesterday morning and then we made it up into a guy. It was easy,” said Tewn ingenuously, “because nuns don’t have much of a figure, do they?”
“And the glasses,” put in Sloan casually. “Where did you pick them up?”
“What glasses?” asked Tewn.
“The guy that I rescued was wearing glasses,” said Sloan impatiently. “Where did they come from?”
Parker nodded. “Yes, it was. They were on her—it, I mean—when Bullen and I carried it out to the fire.”
“I didn’t see any glasses,” said Tewn. “We put a couple of buttons in for eyes.”
Bullen stirred. “She was wearing glasses when Parker and I went to fetch her for the fire. We thought you’d put them on her, Tewn—they looked proper old-fashioned.”
“Not me,” said Tewn. “I didn’t go back to the cowshed at all after we’d made her up in the morning. I was on the pig rota, remember? We had a farrowing at half past six and I jolly nearly missed my supper.”
“I thought you’d cadged an old pair from Matron,” said Parker. “She wears them just like that.”
Ranby was right: Parker was the most intelligent of the three. Sloan said, “So you didn’t take them from the Convent with the habit?”
“Oh, no,” said Tewn quickly. “Besides we wouldn’t have known they weren’t wanted, would we?”
“Like you knew the habit wasn’t wanted?” suggested Sloan smoothly. “Like you knew the door would be open for you…”
Tewn’s colour flared up again, Parker looked sullen, Bullen quite impassive. All three remained silent.
“If, by any chance, any one of the three of you remembers how it came about that that cellar door was to be open to you on Wednesday evening, and that an old habit that nobody wanted just happened to be lying there for the taking, perhaps you’d be kind enough to let me know. It might, incidentally, just be in your own interests to do so, if you get me.”
Sloan and Crosby went back to the study. Celia Faine was sitting by the fire. She smiled at him. “Here’s the inspector again. How did you find Marwin’s little criminals?”
“Guilty, I hope,” said Ranby. “I don’t think there was any doubt, was there, that they got that habit?”
“None at all, sir. They admitted it.”
“Their idea of a good lark, I suppose.”
“That’s right, sir, but they say they didn’t take the glasses—the ones that the guy was wearing, remember?”
“Yes, Inspector, I remember. I’m not ever likely to forget, but I don’t know who can help you there.”
“You can.”
“Me?” Ranby looked quite startled. “How?”
“By telling me who could have had access to your cowsheds during the day.”
“Cowsheds?” His brow cleared. “The guy—of course. Why, anyone, I suppose. There are all those who go in at milking and to clean and those who teach on milk handling and the Milk Marketing Board people. Any number in one day.”
“The sheds are never locked?”
“I doubt if there’s even a key,” said Ranby. “There’s nothing to steal, you see.”
“So anyone could go in there at any time of the day without it occasioning any interest?”
“Anyone from the Institute, of course. I don’t know about outsiders. The vet’s here often enough, and odd Inspectors—Ministry ones, I mean.”
“I see, sir. Thank you. I think that’s all I need to know for the present. Goodnight, miss, goodnight, sir— sorry to have to disturb you so late…” At the door, he turned and looked back. “These students of yours— are they allowed out into the village at all?”
“Oh, yes, Inspector, but they must be in by nine on a weekday and half past ten at the weekend. That’s early, I know, but we have an early start here. If they’re going to be dairy farmers they might as well get used to it now, that’s the way we look at it.”
Hobbett lived in a depressed-looking cottage just off Cullingoak High Street. Neither he nor his wife were noticeably welcoming to Sloan and Crosby. They were led through into the kitchen. It was not clean. A pile of dirty dishes had been taken as far as the sink but not washed. Parts of both an old loaf and a new one lay on the table with some more dirty cups. There were two chairs by the kitchen grate. Mrs. Hobbett subsided into one of these which immediately demonstrated itself to be a rocking chair. She went backwards and forwards, never taking her eyes off the two policemen.
“Just a few more questions, Hobbett,” said Sloan mildly.
“Well?”
“We’re interested in this key of yours to the Convent.”
“What about it?”
“Where do you keep it for a start?”
Hobbett jerked his thumb over towards the back door. “There, on a hook.”
“Is it there now?”
“You’ve got eyes, haven’t you? That’s it, all right.”
“Is it always there?”
“Except when it’s in my pocket.”
“You never lend it to anyone?”
“Me? What for? Catch people wanting to go in one of them places? Never. And it’s my opinion that some of them that’s inside would a lot rather be outside.”
“Nevertheless, you always lock up before you go every night?”
Hobbett scowled. “Yes, I do, mate. Every night, like I said.”
Sloan was quite silent on the way back to Berebury, and Crosby couldn’t decide whether he was brooding or dozing.
“Hobbett’s the best bet,” said Sloan suddenly.
Brooding, after all. “Yes, sir.”
“He could have got into that garden room without it seeming odd and taken the habit down to the cellar. Then all he has to do is to leave the door unlocked when he goes home.”
“Doesn’t that dragon at the gate—”
“Polycarp.”
“Doesn’t she check up on that door?”
“No need, Crosby. The door from the cellar to the Convent proper is always kept locked. The Reverend Mother said so.”
“Why didn’t he just take the habit, then?”
“Him? Catch him doing anything that’ll lose him that nice soft number of a job he’s got? Don’t be daft. Look at it this way. All he has to do is to shift an old habit from that garden room—or whatever you call it—to his little lobby place. Nothing criminal in that.”
“Then give the key to those lads?”
“Give nothing, man. He just forgets to lock the door, that’s all. Nothing criminal in that, either. ‘Ever so sorry, Sister. It must have slipped my mind. Won’t happen again.’ That’s if they ever get to know, which they stood a good chance of not doing. Besides, that way Tewn, Parker and Whatshisname—”
“Bullen.”
“—Bullen have all the fun of going inside themselves. Much more daring, blast them. Heroes, that’s probably what they think they are. Brave men. They’ve been inside a Convent. Something to tell their grandchildren about. I wonder what Hobbett got out of it?”
“A few drinks?” suggested Crosby.
“And,” said Sloan, still pursuing his own train of thought, “he didn’t think he would be doing any harm because he knew they couldn’t get any further.”
“Because the cellar door was always kept locked,” supplied Crosby. “I say, sir, that’s a point, isn’t it? I mean, who opened the cellar door in the first place?”
Sloan grunted. “We might make a detective out of you yet, Crosby. Who do you think opened it?”
Crosby subsided. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Neither do I,” retorted Sloan briefly. “The important thing is that it was opened from the inside.”
“That narrows the field a bit, sir, doesn’t it?”
“Does it, Crosby?”
“Well, you couldn’t have just anybody walking about inside, could you?”