“Am I to go with you? I told Sister Hilary I didn’t think so.”
“No, I would rather you stayed here and manned our operational base, as it were. I will have George drive me to the convent.”
“How long do you expect to be away? There’s that BBC series coming up, you know.”
“Not for another month. I have it in mind. I do not anticipate a lengthy stay at the convent.”
“Fair enough. After the BBC set-up there’s the Bodley thing in Oxford. You don’t want to go wearing yourself out chasing some obscure poison-pen when you ought to be conserving your strength for more important matters.”
“I have always been interested in the psychology of the writers of anonymous letters. I cannot feel that the subject has ever been explored sufficiently.”
“I thought it was all old hat. You know, thwarted spinsters and gaga old maids and so forth.”
“Then why don’t all thwarted women write such letters?”
“Can’t afford the postage stamps, perhaps.”
“Yes, and that brings us to the nub of this convent matter. If—as the letter from Sister Mary Hilary suggests—the writer is one of their elderly paying guests, how are the letters delivered? Do they all come by post, or are some of them pushed under doors?”
“You think that by examining the postage stamp angle you can come to some conclusion about the writer? Of course, postage stamps do come expensive these days and old ladies who live in convent guesthouses may not be blessed with overmuch spare cash.”
“That does not follow. Nervous old ladies of substance may well think that a convent is the safest harbour in these troubled and rapacious times.”
She set off, driven by her chauffeur, immediately after breakfast on the following morning and so missed a telephone message that came through at half-past ten. Laura took it, wrote it down, and whistled as she did so, realising there was nothing she could do about it. She did not know where Dame Beatrice would decide to stop for lunch so could not contact her before she arrived at her destination. In any case, thought Laura, it did not matter very much. The telephone message had begged Dame Beatrice only to postpone her visit, not to put it off entirely, and when Laura, answering the caller, who turned out to be Sister Mary Hilary herself, said that Dame Beatrice was already on her way, there had been expressions of relief at the other end of the line.
It was a longish drive from the Stone House in Hampshire to the convent, but there were no delays on the road except for the lunch-stop in Tewkesbury, and the car drew up at the gates of the convent car-park at just before half-past three. The gates were closed and a policeman was on duty. He opened the gates sufficiently to allow himself through and came up to the car to speak to Dame Beatrice.
“Are you a parent, madam?”
“No. I have come up from Hampshire on official business with Sister Mary Hilary.” She produced a visiting card. “She is expecting me.”
The constable glanced at the card and his face cleared.
“Oh, yes, madam, that’s in order,” he said. “If you wouldn’t mind parking clear of the inspector’s car, madam. He is over at the school at the moment.” He opened the double gates to let the car through, closed, and locked them again and resumed his vigil. George drove up to the front door of the convent, opened the car door to allow Dame Beatrice to alight, and then parked at a respectful distance from the police car which was also near the front door.
At the entrance to the convent stood another policeman. Apparently he had received a signal from the man on duty at the gates, for he saluted Dame Beatrice and moved aside for her to enter. In the hall was the fluttering, excited figure of Sister Marcellus, apparently stationed on watch.
“Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley?” she said. “Oh, yes, please to come with me. The prioress is expecting you. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Such times we live in, to be sure! Poor Miss Lipscombe! But it was only to be expected.”
“What was?”
“She’s dead, you know. That is why the police are here. A dreadful thing. I have never known anything like it. But there! If it isn’t one thing it’s another. I will take you straight to Mother St. Elmo. We have to call her Sister nowadays. She is in her office and the inspector is over at the school questioning everybody. As though we or the poor children can tell him why she did it and so died in mortal sin!”
A moment later Dame Beatrice met Sister Mary St. Elmo. She was warmly greeted and found her yellow claw grasped in a firm, plump, brown hand, as the prioress led her from the bare little business-like office along another part of the cloister to the convent parlour.
“There!” she said, more or less pushing Dame Beatrice on to a very comfortable settee. “What a terrible journey for you! You must have some tea! Sister, some tea for Dame Beatrice.”
Sister Marcellus, who had followed them along the echoing cloister and had been hovering in the parlour doorway, now manifested herself. She was actuated largely by curiosity, but also, reasonably enough, she regarded herself as indispensable when visitors arrived and had to be hospitably entertained.
“Tea?” she said. “Yes, of course, Mother.”
“That is not my title,” said the prioress, when Marcellus had gone off to the kitchen. “I am Sister Mary St. Elmo, prioress. Sister Mary Hilary telephoned you this morning, but your secretary said that you had already left home. We are so glad to see you. Sister was so much relieved when she knew that it was too late to put off your visit. We are in terrible trouble.”
“The Sister who brought me to you mentioned a fatality.”
“Yes, indeed. Miss Lipscombe, one of our paying guests, was found drowned in the school pond this morning.”
“Dear me! That must have been very disconcerting for you all. Was it an accident?”
“Well,” said Sister St. Elmo, “as it had to happen, that is what we are hoping, but there are factors which make us wonder. Of course we had to send for the police. The doctor told us that we must do so. Their manner, since they have been here—over six hours now—has been most reserved and, I would say, suspicious. Every one of us has been closely questioned, rooms have been searched, the pond in which the poor soul was found has been cordoned off, and now, I understand, the schoolchildren are to be interrogated. The police could hardly be more thorough, or more alarming, if Miss Lipscombe had been murdered.”
“They have to make a study in depth of these things,” said Dame Beatrice, to whom this account of the proceedings had indicated that the police felt that they had every reason to be reserved and suspicious.
“Fortunately, in England they are also very polite,” said Sister St. Elmo, as one who is determined to give the devil his due. “We have no complaints on that score. Of course, when Sister Mary Hilary was told what had happened to poor dear Miss Lipscombe, she would have liked to send all the children home straightway this morning, but she consulted with Sister Mary Wolstan, who is the school secretary, and they decided that, as the majority of the pupils are taken home by car, the task of telephoning upwards of a hundred and fifty parents, many of whom would inevitably have been out shopping or at coffee-parties or something of the sort, was too daunting to be contemplated. A good thing it was, in a way, because the police inspector was adamant that nobody was to leave, either from the school or from this house, until he gave permission. It seems very arbitrary to me, but I suppose the police know their own business and what the rules are.”
“Undoubtedly. Besides, for your own sakes it is as well to get matters cleared up and the police off the premises as soon as possible.”
At this point Sister Marcellus brought in tea. The prioress introduced her as soon as she had set down the loaded tray and then intimated that they would leave Dame Beatrice in peace to enjoy her tea. She was not left alone for long. She had just poured out her first cup when the door opened and an elderly, dark-eyed woman in a flowered dress augmented by a woollen jacket came in, saw the visitor, said, “Oh, good afternoon. I did not know anybody was here,” seated herself in an
armchair and got on with the crotcheting of a long piece of lace which she had brought in with her. After a short pause, during which Dame Beatrice took a sip of tea, the newcomer, without looking up from her occupation, went on: “You come to take Miss Lipscombe’s place, no?”
“No, I am here only for a very short visit, I hope.”
“So? I thought it was too soon for them to have let her room, especially as she had paid to the end of the week.”
“Who is Miss Lipscombe?” asked Dame Beatrice, deciding that it might be interesting to obtain a point of view about the deceased which was not that of the nuns and might very well be complementary to it.
“Miss Lipscombe? You do not know? This morning—last night, maybe—she go with God.” Mrs. Polkinghorne crossed herself devoutly. “Fall in the biggest pond and is drowned.”
“Good gracious! How did that happen?”
“Nobody knows. The police are here. What is your name? How well do you know this dead woman? How long have you lived here? Did she always walk in the grounds by herself? Was she a subject of the dizzy?—the vahido, they mean the vértigo—you understand?”
“And was she?”
“Oh, no, not at all. She had a good command over her head when she is on high.”
“A good head for heights?”
“Oh, yes, that is it. I have seen her when we have our summer treat. She go to the edge of cliffs, look down—no fears at all.”
“So it isn’t likely that she became giddy when she was standing by the pond and tumbled in.”
“That is what I do not understand. The ponds—there are three, one for the ducks, one for the water-lilies, and this big one which is at the end of the school field—nobody from the convent ever go to the ponds except las niñas and Sister Maria ’Onoria who feed the ducks. Never did I know Miss Lipscombe to go near the ponds. Why should she do that? There is nothing to see except a lot of dirty water. We do not go to the school field, we of the convent. We have our own garden, peaceful, beautiful, with walks and seats and an estatua de Santa Maria en Gruta. Why should we go to the school field?”
“Well, it seems that Miss Lipscombe did go there.”
“I think somebody take her.”
“Really? What makes you think so?”
“She write too many letters. I tell her. I say to her, ‘One day you write one letter too many,’ and I think that is what she do.”
“To whom did she write these letters?”
Mrs. Polkinghorne made a wide gesture.
“She write them to everybody—cada uno, cada una, a todo el mundo,” she said spaciously.
“How do you know?”
“What is there to do here but to find out? She find out everybody his business; I find out her business. Very simple. I ask at the post office, ‘Did Miss Lipscombe buy her stamps, or shall I get them for her?’ They say, ‘Oh, but she has twenty the other day. She need more?’ So I say, ‘Not so, if she has twenty. I think to save her the journey, that is all.’ They say, ‘Very kind thought.’ Of course it is not kind at all. I know she write these letters. Now I know she post them.”
“It must have cost her a good deal of money.”
“Oh, that Miss Lipscombe, she was a bad egg. I think she get money from Mrs. Wilks because of something she know about her. She write her a letter, too. This I know because she tell me.”
“Mrs. Wilks told you?”
“No. That Miss Lipscombe, she tell me herself. ‘I write to her by the post office,’ she tell me. So what do you make of that?”
“Did she receive an answer?”
“That,” said Mrs. Polkinghorne regretfully, “I do not know. She say so, but I am not sure.”
“But you said that she received money from Mrs. Wilks.”
“How else can she buy all those stamps?”
Before Dame Beatrice could point out that there were other reasons why Miss Lipscombe might have been in a position to buy stamps, the chief reason being that she might have gone without other things in order to do so, Sister Marcellus came in to clear the tea-table and to inform Dame Beatrice that her room was ready for her if she would care to go along and inspect it.
In the cloister they met the prioress, who took over from Sister Marcellus and conducted Dame Beatrice to the room kept for visiting priests, and which (although Dame Beatrice only suspected this) was much the most comfortably furnished bedchamber in the house.
Her suitcase, she found, had already been deposited in it. She ventured to enquire whether there was any household in the village which would be willing to lodge her chauffeur or whether he should seek accommodation in the town.
“Oh, Tom is looking after him,” said Sister St. Elmo. “Your man has had his tea at Tom’s cottage and there is a bed there for him. It is all arranged. Now there is a bell in this room,” she indicated it, “which connects with the kitchen. If you will ring it as soon as you are ready, Sister Marcellus will bring you along to my office, since it is better that we do not talk together in the parlour because Mrs. Polkinghorne has a right to be in there to have her tea and to spend the evening if she so wishes. When the others come over from school, Sister Mary Hilary will join us and we can have our conversation in private. Needless to say, now that we have Miss Lipscombe’s death to add to our anxieties we are more eager than ever to have your help and support. There is still the question of the anonymous letters, of course, but I think it is doubtful whether we shall see any more of those.”
Among the other amenities provided for visiting priests was a small private bathroom to which, with pride, Sister Marcellus, who had followed the prioress, now directed attention.
“It opens out of the bedroom,” she pointed out, “so nobody uses it but you and nobody cleans it but me. You have good soap and soft towels, also a mirror. I hope you will be happy and comfortable. Ring your bell if there is anything I can do for you. I am accustomed to run about this house, now here, now there, at the command of everybody. I am cook, cleaner, portress, all of it. One serves.”
“Like the Prince of Wales,” said Dame Beatrice. “I shall give as little trouble as possible, Sister, I assure you. I shall not add to the burdens of a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord.”
She rang the bell as soon as she had unpacked and washed away the stains, if any, of travel, and after a short interval Sister Marcellus reappeared, gave her a swift up-and-down look as though to make sure that she was presentable, and took her along the cloister to the prioress.
“Sister Mary Hilary has not come over yet,” said Sister St. Elmo, giving Dame Beatrice the only comfortable chair in the sparsely furnished office while she herself sat behind her desk, “and the children have not been dismissed, either. I sent across to let her know that you have arrived, so I know she will come as soon as ever she can. Is there anything I can tell you while we are waiting for her? I have all the letters that have been sent to the Community. I expect you would like to see them, though I’m afraid there is little point now, as I think I indicated.”
“You think that Miss Lipscombe wrote the letters?”
“Well, that is something that ought to be cleared up, though I don’t think anybody has any doubts.” She gave Dame Beatrice an account of the theft of the staff-list and added, “So we cannot imagine why anybody should take such a list unless to be in a position to send these scurrilous letters to the private addresses of our secular teachers.”
“In her own letter to Mrs. Gavin, Sister Mary Hilary mentioned that the first two letters followed the departure of one of your elderly guests and that there had been a slight accident with your car that caused a certain amount of injury to one of the villagers.”
“A child, yes. The first letters were nothing much. It is these later ones that have caused us so much uneasiness.”
“Have you preserved the early letters?”
“No. They were rather hurtful, suggesting as they did, that we were unpopular on account of the accident and, also, because Mrs. Wilks had left us, but they were
not offensively couched as far as the language employed was concerned.”
“Why did she leave you?”
“A nephew had come into money and offered to give her a home. I must say that he seemed pleasant enough. An Irishman, I think. He contributed lavishly to the Poor Box which we keep in the parlour on top of the piano. Miss Lipscombe thought he was a Jew, but many Irishmen have prominent noses. I will admit, however, that he was wearing expensive-looking, extremely smart, somewhat loud clothes and came in a very large car, which Tom, our factotum, tells me is this year’s model. He also left a five-pound note on the table to pay for his lunch. Sister Marcellus found it when she cleared away after he and Mrs. Wilks had gone. It was quite unnecessary for him to pay, of course.”
“Mrs. Wilks, no doubt, was pleased to see one of her relatives. Had he ever visited her before?”
“Nobody had visited her. Indeed, she told me that she had only a niece and had no idea that she was married. This man wrote to Mrs. Wilks about a week before she left us, but she kept her own counsel except that, of course, I knew she had had a letter, since all correspondence comes to me to be distributed. The first I knew of her changed circumstances, however, was when she asked me how much notice I should require, as she was giving up her room.”
“I see. And it was after she left the convent that the anonymous letters began. What about Miss Lipscombe at that time?”
“Well, we did not connect them with Miss Lipscombe at first because (of the early letters) one referred to the injured child and the other to Mrs. Wilks. At first we thought both were written by the same person, but when others came we’ve been inclined to believe that those sent to Sister Mary Hilary were genuine; that is to say, that they came from the parents of the child, but we think that the rest of the letters were written by Miss Lipscombe. Anyway, we shall soon know the truth about Miss Lipscombe.”
“If no more letters come?”
“That is what I mean.”
“Had she any reason to believe that you suspected her?”
“That is what makes her death so terrible. I think she did have reason to believe it. We had talked openly, and in her presence, of calling in the police. Of course, we had not intended to do anything of the sort.”
Convent on Styx (Mrs. Bradley) Page 11