The Mother Prioress began as she always did without preamble. “There has been another murder. Not, as you know, a member of the Community, but a student. He was killed in our grounds some time before recreation this morning—at least that is the police view. The alternative is that he was killed somewhere else and brought to the Convent grounds. Those of you who have seen him would agree it is very unlikely. No, I fear our connection with this particular student is closer than that. He is the one who came into the Convent on Wednesday for the old habit which was subsequently rescued by Inspector Sloan from the guy on the Institute bonfire. Do I make myself clear?”
It was an unnecessary question. The Mother Prioress always made herself clear.
“Therefore,” she continued lucidly, “we still have a grave problem very near at hand. Sister Anne was killed here in the Convent. This boy William Tewn— God rest his soul—who was the one to enter the Convent on Wednesday has also been killed. Until both crimes have been solved completely we are none of us in a position to know that no member of the Community is involved.”
She waited for this more oblique point to be appreciated.
“Moreover, we are bound by certain other considerations. Murder is not normally the action of a normal human being, still less that of a religious. But it can be the abnormal action of an abnormal person. That is the fact that we cannot overlook however much we might wish to.”
The cheerful face of Sister Hilda clouded over as the significance of this struck home.
“In the ordinary way,” went on the Mother Prioress, “it would never be necessary for me to ask you to tell me of anything untoward in the behaviour of your Sisters, but we are not in the ordinary way. Far from it. We are somewhere now outside our experience, and there can be no peace of mind until the unhappy soul who has perpetrated these two crimes has been found and relieved of the terrible burden of their guilt.”
It wasn’t how Sloan would have put it, but it came to the same thing.
“You mean, Mother, one of us might have done it?” Sister Hilda looked quite astounded.
“I trust not, but temporary—or permanent—aberration is never impossible.”
Sister Ninian nodded agreement. “Any one of us could have slipped out into the grounds before recreation and just stayed out and come in with the others afterwards…”
“Surely not!” exclaimed Sister Lucy.
Sister Polycarp looked down at her own strong hands. “They say he wasn’t very big.”
Sister Lucy shivered. “But who—which one of us could possibly have wanted…”
“Have needed?”
“… have needed to do a terrible thing like that?”
“Two terrible things,” put in the Mother Prioress quietly.
Sister Ninian frowned. Her hair, if she had had any hair, would have been grey by now, turned by the passing years, as her eyebrows had been, to a pale greyish blur above her blue eyes. “This means, Mother, doesn’t it, that there is a connection between the two deaths?”
“A strong connection,” said the Mother Prioress. “One so strong that the police feel they must interview every Sister today. They are particularly anxious that the details of the second crime of which you are already aware should not be communicated to the rest of the Community. I have undertaken that you will not . discuss it either with them or with anyone else. I do not need to remind you that you are under obedience in this respect.”
There was a series of assorted nods.
“The police,” said the Mother Prioress, “have intimated to me that they consider it essential that these interviews are conducted by them with each Sister alone. It is not a procedure to which in the ordinary way I would have ever given my consent. As I have said before, we are no longer in the ordinary way. I have communicated with the Very Reverend Mother General at our Mother House and with Father MacAuley. Both are of the opinion that this is not an unreasonable request. And Inspector Sloan has sent to Calleford for a—er—lady policewoman.”
“Luston?” barked Superintendent Leeyes. “What the devil do you want to go to Luston for?”
“To see a Miss Eileen Lome, sir.”
“Are you going to tell me why, Sloan, or do I have to ask you?”
“She was a nun, sir, until about three weeks ago when she left the Convent of St. Anselm.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t rightly say, sir. The Mother Prioress said she asked to be released from her vows and she was.”
Leeyes’s head went up like a bloodhound getting a scent. “Trouble in the camp?”
“Perhaps.”
“We should have been told before.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Luston’s not very far.”
“No, sir. I thought I could go there while I wait for Sergeant Perkins to get over here from Calleford.”
The superintendent gave a wolfish grin. “Sent for Pretty Polly, have you?”
“Yes, sir. I can’t make headway in an interview with the Mother Prioress supervising and a couple of others sitting around for good measure. I want them on their own.”
Leeyes nodded. “What about the Institute?”
“No joy there, sir. Tewn’s fellow conspirators can’t or won’t help much. Can’t—I think. Bullen can’t remember anything Tewn said about the inside of the Convent that might give us any sort of lead. It might come to him, I suppose, though there’s not much between his ears. Except bone. They’re both trying to think hard of everything Tewn said or did since then.”
“Cartwright?”
“Gone into Berebury for the afternoon. Left The Bull as soon as he’d had his lunch.”
“Before you got there?”
“Yes, sir.” Sloan wasn’t going to start apologising at this stage. “He says he’ll be back, and he’s left all his papers and clothes and so on. Besides, I’ve got a man at the London end checking up on Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons, and this business about their going public on Thursday. He wasn’t all that pleased to be setting about it on a Saturday afternoon either.”
“Duty first,” said the superintendent virtuously. He looked at the clock. His erstwhile golfing cronies would be at the seventh tee about now. Superintendent Leeyes had lost two balls there last Saturday afternoon —driven them straight into the rough. “Cartwright will come back, I suppose? Because if not—”
“Our trouble has been surely that he’s here in the first place,” objected Sloan. “Practically underfoot, he’s been. He’s got motive, all right. But he’s got brains too. Enough brains not to come knocking on the door out of the blue asking for Cousin Josephine if he dotted her on the head the night before.”
“It’s very nice for him that she’s dead,” said Leeyes. “Very nice. Now he can go ahead and turn his private firm into a nice little public company with heaven only knows what benefits to the principal shareholders.”
“Death duty,” said Sloan absently. “From her father’s will, Sister Anne’s share reverts to her uncle on her death without issue, which is fair enough. If they turn it into a public company while she’s alive she can have a say in everything because she’s got a fifty per cent stake in the capital. And you can’t run a chemical company from a convent. If they leave it alone then she and uncle will each have to pay out a walloping proportion of the entire value of the firm in death duties sooner or later.”
“This way?” asked Leeyes silkily.
“This way they go public on Thursday and transfer large blocks of shares round the family—Harold’s children—grandchildren for all I know—some for the trusty members of the Board—that sort of thing.”
“And I suppose you can also tell me why they didn’t sell the whole boiling lot years ago?”
“Yes, sir. Then there wouldn’t have been a job for our Harold Cartwright as Managing Director, and I fancy he enjoys being Managing Director of Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons. Besides, Sister Anne’s consent would have been necessary but not, I fancy, forthcoming.”