“Gone to bed, Inspector, as usual.”
“Good. And the arrangements for changing over the watch so to speak?”
“The retiring Sisters will knock on their successors’ doors ten minutes before the hour.”
“Excellent. Is Sister Lucy in bed?”
“Sister Lucy has perforce been in bed for some time now, Inspector.”
He gave her a quick smile. “We’re nearly there, marm.”
“Pray God that you are,” she said soberly.
Sloan made himself as comfortable as he could in the flower room and settled down to wait. And to wonder.
If he opened the door the minutest fraction he could see the hall and its sentinel. First it was Father MacAuley who paced up and down the hall and then did a methodical round of doors and windows. Sloan had to retreat behind a curtain for that. And then Harold Cartwright, noisier than the priest, conscientiously poking about along the corridor and talking quietly up the stairs to Sister Damien and Sister Perpetua.
He heard them at about quarter past twelve and again at a quarter to one.
“Everything all right up there with you?”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Cartwright. It’s all quiet, thank God.” Sister Damien’s thin whisper came floating down the stairs in reply. “We’re just going along to wake the others. We’ll see you at two o’clock again.”
“Right you are.”
Sloan heard him do one last quick round and then nip back towards the Parlour. Then the Parlour door opened and Ranby came out. He came straight to the garden room, and Sloan was hard put to it to get behind his curtain in time. Ranby pulled back the bolts and left the door slightly ajar and then went back to the hall.
Sloan came out from behind his curtain and held the door open. Ranby was standing at the foot of the stairs, calling softly upwards.
“Are you there, Sister Lucy?”
Sister Gertrude came to the balustrade and leaned over. “We’re both here, Mr. Ranby. Is there something wrong?”
“No. I just wanted a word with Sister Lucy about Tewn. It’s something she said earlier this morning. It’s just occurred to me it might be important.”
Sister Gertrude withdrew and Sister Lucy appeared in her stead on the landing and began walking slowly down the polished treads, her head bent well down, her massive bunch of keys swinging from her girdle.
Ranby retreated a little as she descended, backing away from the small well of light in the hall, away from the gaze of Sister Gertrude. He came, as Sloan thought he would, towards the dark corridor where Sister Anne had died, the corridor where Sloan stood waiting and watching.
“Felicity,” Ranby whispered urgently to her, “come this way. I must talk to you.”
The nun turned obediently in his direction and walked exactly where he said.
“This way,” he urged. “So that the others don’t hear us.”
She was almost level with him now, his eyes watching her every movement, not seeing at all the dim shadowy figure that was following her down the stairs, pressed against the furthest wall.
As she drew abreast of him he put up an arm as if to embrace her. It quickly changed to a savage grasp, his other hand coming up in front of her neck searching for soft, vulnerable cartilage and vital windpipe.
The eager questing fingers were destined to be disappointed in their prey.
The nun did a quick shrug and twist and Ranby let out a yelp of pain. The arm fell back, but he came in with the other. That did him no good at all. The nun caught it and flung herself forward against it. Ranby fell heavily, her weight on top of him.
And then Sloan was there and the dark shadow on the wall was translated into Detective-Constable Crosby with handcuffs at the ready. Along the corridor the Parlour door opened and Father MacAuley and Harold Cartwright came hurrying out.
The nun clambered off Ranby, hitching up her habit in an un-nun-like way. “These blasted skirts,” she said, “certainly hamper a girl.” She struggled out of the headdress and shook her hair loose. “But this is worse. Fancy having to live in one of these.”
“That’s not Sister Lucy,” gasped Ranby.
“No,” agreed Sloan. “That’s Police-Sergeant Perkins in Sister Lucy’s habit.”
19
« ^
I didn’t think it would come off a second time,” said Sloan modestly.
The superintendent grunted. He didn’t usually reckon to come in to the station on a Sunday morning, but then his Criminal Investigation Department didn’t arrest a double murderer every day of the week. Sloan, Perkins, Gelden and Crosby were all present—and looking regrettably pleased with themselves.
“No snags at all?” asked Leeyes.
“Worked like a charm,” said Sloan cheerfully. “He was quite taken in by Sergeant Perkins. So was I, sir. Anyone would have been.”
“Would they indeed?” said Leeyes. “Sergeant Perkins makes a good nun, does she?”
Sergeant Perkins flushed. “That headdress thing…”
“Coif,” supplied Sloan, now the expert.
“Coif is about the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever worn.”
“You didn’t wear her hair shirt then,” said Leeyes acidly.
“No, sir. On the other hand, sir, you can’t blame Ranby for making a mistake that first time. You can’t see a nun’s face unless you get a straightforward front view, you know, and I don’t suppose he wanted to do that anyway.”
“Don’t forget either, sir,” put in Sloan, “that nuns don’t age as quickly as we do. I don’t know why. But Sister Anne looked the sort of age he expected Sister Lucy to look by now.”
“And,” went on Sergeant Perkins, “it’s about the darkest corridor I’ve ever been in.”
“That’s their subconscious harking back to candle-power,” said Sloan sotto voce.
Leeyes ignored this. “So Ranby killed Sister Anne on Wednesday in error?”
“Pure and simple case of mistaken identity, sir. It all fits. He was out to kill Sister Lucy, the Bursar and Procuratrix, who always wears that great big heavy bunch of keys hanging from her girdle. Always.”
“Except on Wednesday evenings?”
“No, just this one Wednesday so that Sister Anne could look out some gifts to send to the Missions in time for Christmas. I gather in the ordinary way she would have come with her, but she was busy on Wednesday evening.”
“What’s she got to be busy about?”
Sloan didn’t know. He didn’t think he would ever know what made them busy in a Convent. “Anyway, sir, she handed over her badge of office—a very conspicuous one—to Sister Anne, and so Ranby thinks it’s her. He picks up the orb on the newel post…”
“He knew all about that, did he?”
“Oh, yes, sir, from Celia Faine. He hits Sister Anne very hard indeed on the back of the head and puts it back. Not even bothering to wipe it very clean. If it’s found it’s a pointer to an inside job, isn’t it?”
“It wasn’t found,” pointed out the superintendent unkindly. “Not until someone laid it out on a plate for you.”
“No, sir,” said Sloan. “On the other hand it didn’t mislead us about its being an inside job either, did it? And then, sir,” he went on hurriedly, not liking the superintendent’s expression, “he bundles the body into the broom cupboard and takes the glasses off. It’s quite dark in there too and so he still doesn’t know he’s nobbled the wrong horse.”
“And then what?”
“He goes back to the Institute for supper.”
“He does what?”
“Goes back to the Institute for supper.”
“Who threw her down the stairs then?”
“He did.”
“When?”
“After supper.”
“Why?”
“Delay her being found, upset the timing, make us think she’d fallen—that sort of thing. Implicating Tewn, too, if necessary. It wouldn’t have been any bother to drag her along the corridor and shove her down the steps as he was there anyway.”