“Did either of them remind you of anyone you had ever seen before?”
Cecilia shook her head.
“As soon as I saw them we went upstairs,” she said. “It wasn’t really because of the men. It was because we heard Miss Lipscombe’s door creak and we didn’t want her to know we’d been using her lavatory.”
“Would you say that the men were actually searching the cloister?”
“As if they’d lost something, do you mean? No, it wasn’t like that. It was more as if—as if—I don’t know how to explain it.”
“And you don’t know whether Miss Lipscombe actually came out of her room?”
“Well,” said the child judicially, “we didn’t hear her pull the chain.”
“But you didn’t pull it yourselves, did you?”
“Only because we didn’t want to wake people up.”
“Well, she might have had the same humane reason. So you don’t know whether she did come out of her room?”
“I think she’d have screamed if she’d seen the men.”
“An excellent and most telling point; unless, of course, she knew they were going to be there.”
“I don’t think she would have gone to the lavatory with men about, even if she did know them. She was ever so old-fashioned and peculiar. She told us we ought not to wear tee shirts and our shorts. She said it was a temptation to Quince, so we asked Quince and he said he should worry, and to ask the old pussy if she knew any good limericks, but, of course, we didn’t do anything of the sort.”
“Well, now we come to the crux of the matter. What made you decide to confide in Father MacNicol? What suddenly frightened you about all this?”
“It was Miss Lipscombe getting drowned.”
“But that was just an accident. It could have happened to anybody.”
“Yes, I s’pose it could,” said Cecilia doubtfully.
“Why are you unconvinced, I wonder?”
“Please don’t press them, Dame Beatrice,” said Mrs. Cartwright, looking up from her book.
“It’s all right, mummy,” said Cecilia. “I want her to know.”
“Suppose I guess?” suggested Dame Beatrice.
“No. You might not guess right. I’ll tell you. I heard Miss Lipscombe’s door creak and, if it creaked, it meant she opened it and, if she opened it, she might have seen the men. Then she got drowned and I thought—well, I thought that if the men knew we’d seen them, too—even if it was only the back of them, we might get drowned. So I thought about it and I thought about it, and then I began to have bad dreams because I thought perhaps it was our fault Miss Lipscombe got drowned and if we hadn’t been there she might not have come out of her room, because she might have come out because she heard us and we might be to blame because the men drowned her.” Cecilia drew breath. “So that’s why,” she concluded. Dame Beatrice nodded solemnly several times.
“I appreciate your point of view,” she said gravely. “Did you tell any other girls about all this?”
“Oh, yes, when school term started, but that was because we hadn’t any suspicions then. It was just for a giggle about Miss Lipscombe. I’m sorry I said silly things about her, now she’s dead.”
“Death doesn’t make that sort of difference,” said Dame Beatrice. “You couldn’t have known she was going to die so soon, when you said the silly things. I expect the other girls laughed and told other girls, didn’t they?”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure they did. We didn’t mean to be unkind, though, not really.”
“Of course you didn’t. Besides, there is safety in numbers.”
“What do you mean?”
“That there is nothing left for you to worry about, so long as so many others know what you know.”
“That’s what Father MacNicol says.”
As George pulled up outside the convent on the return journey from the Cartwright’s house, he said, “I think that’s Mrs. Gavin’s car, madam.”
“Dear me,” said Dame Beatrice, “so it is. I wonder whether she has had her tea?”
“I’m sure she has, madam.”
“True. One lion may, when many asses do,” Dame Beatrice amiably responded. She greeted her secretary affectionately but with a query in her voice.
“Just thought I’d look you up,” said Laura airily. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Sister Mary Hilary will be glad to see you.”
“So this is where she hangs out nowadays.” Laura squinted up at the barrack-like building. “Is she likely to be within hailing distance?”
Dame Beatrice looked at her wristwatch, then produced her notebook.
“Not at the moment,” she said, consulting it. The Community will be in the chapel until six and after that they go off to Mass at the parish church in Bristington, the town you came through to get here. Your first chance to see her will be at eight o’clock, when the nuns are at recreation. But what really brings you here?”
“Anybody would think you weren’t pleased to see me. As a matter of fact, I read about that old woman’s death. There was just a tucked-away paragraph in the paper and then you mentioned it in your letter, so I had a hunch that it concerned Sister Hilary’s telephone call putting you off. I had a feeling that you might be getting into mischief over it, so I thought I’d better come along. What on earth was the woman doing to go tumbling into ponds after dark?”
“She didn’t tumble, child. There is a great deal yet that I don’t know, but I’m certain, all the same, that she was murdered.”
“Did you see the body?”
“No. I have no official connection with the case and am prepared to accept the medical evidence that the cause of death was drowning. Have you been here long?”
“Only about a quarter of an hour. A man who seemed to belong to the place came up as soon as I’d parked, so I asked after you and he said you had gone out. I didn’t know how convents functioned on Sundays, so I said I’d wait.”
“That would have been Tom Quince, an excellent fellow. Well, let us go inside and I will bring you up to date with all the news. I have just come from the home of one of the children.” She took Laura in and preceded her up the narrow staircase to the priest-room, where she gave her a brief but sufficient account of all that had been happening.
“And you think this kid’s evidence is valuable, do you?”
“I cannot say until I have tested it.”
“And when do we do that?”
“This evening. I have ascertained that for a space of about two hours, while the whole convent goes to Mass in the town, the coast will be clear and we can explore the ground floor of the building and find out, if we are fortunate, what the men with the lantern were looking for.”
“Have you any idea what it was?”
“None at all.” Dame Beatrice looked again at her watch. “I have put George and my car at the disposal of the nuns,” she went on, “and no doubt he will offer Quince the seat beside him. Place yourself at the window, like Sister Anne, and tell me when the cavalcade has moved off. One or two more cars will be coming along, I understand, and you have to check on eleven nuns.”
“Easily distinguishable to the naked eye, I suppose. Right! This is rather fun. I had no idea I’d be lucky enough to drop in for a spot of hunt-the-slipper as soon as I arrived.” From her post at the window Laura was soon able to begin her report. “Very old nun escorted by a heavily built but not fat one and another who seems to be doing a lot of talking.”
“Old Sister Ignatius, escorted by Sister St. Elmo and Sister Marcellus.”
“One who walks like a princess, yes, and now I get a glimpse of her face, looks like one, too. Golly! What’s she doing in a convent? And there’s a younger one with a visage like a full moon walking with her.”
“Sister Mary Romuald and Sister Mary Raymund.”
“A tallish, tense sort of one walking beside a fat, jolly, Friar Tuck kind of individual.”
“Sister Mary Leo and Sister Mary Honorius.”
; “They look ill assorted.”
“No, they are complementary.”
“Ah, surely one of the next couple is Miss Brownrigg?—I should say Sister Mary Hilary. I’d know that commanding presence anywhere. There’s a slightly jaundiced-looking nun with her . . .”
“Sister Mary Wolstan, the secretary.”
“Last in the procession—do they always form a crocodile when they go out, or is this just a matter of Church Parade—one who’s smiling and has got her headgear on crooked. She’s with a little old sourpuss who looks as though for two pins she could spit out of the side of her mouth.”
“Sister Mary Fabian and Sister Mary Elphege.”
“Now an old woman wearing a black mantilla—Mrs. Polkinghorne, I think you told me—and that’s the lot. The first three are getting into the back seat of your car; George is helping, and here comes the bloke Quince. One or two more cars have rolled up. The Helen of Troy nun is in the driver’s seat of the ancient vehicle which was here when I arrived and her stable-companion and two others are piling in. The rest are being shepherded into the other cars, I think. Now everybody is accommodated, and off we go.”
“Off we go, too,” said Dame Beatrice. “Two hours, the most we can hope for, may be none too long for our business.” They left the comfortable priest-room and Dame Beatrice led the way down the stairs. At the foot of the short flight she halted. “It was from about this point that the child saw the two men,” she said. “They were walking away from her, so let us follow in their footsteps.”
The cloister was stone flagged. The downstair rooms opened out of it on one side; on the other the brickwork was relieved at intervals by round-headed windows that gave what light there was, and beyond them was a small square of grass on which some neat swellings, each with its wooden headstone, indicated the graves of former inmates.
“Shouldn’t care to be wandering round here in the dark,” said the superstitious Laura, glancing out of one of the windows as she passed it.
“Miss Lipscombe’s old room,” said Dame Beatrice, indicating a door. “Mrs. Wilks’s old room, which has a window exit. It may be just as well, incidentally, that those children did not descend the stairs a little earlier.”
“Why?”
“Because, from the account Cecilia gave me, it seems as though the men explored first the part of the cloister that we have already traversed. I wonder why they decided to come this way? It is just as easy to continue in the other direction if one wishes to circumnavigate the cloister.”
“Something to do with widdershins, perhaps,” suggested Laura.
They crossed over the passage that led to the front door and reached the room belonging to old Sister Ignatius. Beyond this, the cloister turned at right angles. At the end of this next passage was the chapel, but as they reached the foot of the chapel stairs Dame Beatrice produced a small electric torch and shone it on the walls. Under the staircase there was a small, round-headed door. Laura examined the padlock that secured it.
“Newish,” she said. “Do I pick it? Nice goings-on for a quiet Sunday evening, I must say.”
“Love laughs at locksmiths and so do burglars,” said Dame Beatrice, as her secretary produced a small tool given her as a souvenir by her policeman husband and which (she said) she always carried in her handbag as a token of his affection.
“Been well-oiled,” said Laura, referring to the lock. She prised it open, pulled at the door and Dame Beatrice’s torch disclosed a flight of steps. “Cellars. Of course this place is built on a hill.” Lighted by the torch, they descended into the cellars. These proved to be vast. “Must run under most of the house. Sub-divided, like the rooms above. Which way shall we go?”
“This way, I think, under the chapel. The cellars will only be beneath the building itself, and not under the cloister garth, since that is a graveyard. The only object of any value the convent possesses is a picture in the refectory; although, unless there is a stair up to the refectory from these cellars . . .”
“Eh, eh!” said Laura suddenly. “What have we here? Doesn’t look much like junk.”
“No. It merely makes other people’s property look like junk,” said Dame Beatrice, staring at the impressive contents of Aladdin’s cave.
“I think,” said Dame Beatrice, five minutes later, “that we had better telephone the police. While there are many chemical compounds with which I am not familiar, those which we discovered just now can hardly have been stored in that cellar by the nuns; nor do I think that the nuns oiled that padlock on the door.”
“Where is the nearest telephone?”
“In the prioress’s room, a sanctum I do not feel I ought to enter without permission. There is another over at the school in the secretary’s office, but while Quince is at Mass we cannot use that one either. It will have to be the public telephone outside the village post office. How fortunate that we have your car at our disposal.”
They drove off in it. The inspector was at home, off duty, but the station sergeant put Dame Beatrice’s message through to him. She and Laura drove back to the convent and there, in less time than they would have supposed possible, he joined them.
“You didn’t give anything away to the sergeant, ma’am,” he said, “just that you needed me urgently.”
“I thought it better not to voice my suspicions over the telephone, Inspector.”
“What are they, ma’am?”
“I hesitate to say, in case I am wildly out in my surmises.”
“Something to do with Miss Lipscombe’s death, do you think?”
“If I am right, it could be everything to do with her death. It could also explain the translation of Mrs. Wilks to another and a more comfortable environment.”
“You have me fogged,” said the inspector good-humouredly, his solemn visage brightening into a smile. “Hadn’t you better come clean?”
“No, I must leave you to judge for yourself.”
She led him to the door of the cellar and lit the way down the steps.
“Well,” he said, when he had inspected Laura’s discovery, “I shall have to get the Special Branch on to this, but I haven’t much doubt that this is a pretty formidable collection of explosives, ma’am. That’s what you made of it, isn’t it? Well, I’m not going to lay a finger on the stuff and I trust you and Mrs. Gavin didn’t touch it, either. Not that fingerprints will be any use to us unless one of the fellows has a record, and in this kind of business that’s unlikely. Is there a telephone in the house?”
Untroubled by the scruples previously expressed by Dame Beatrice, he entered the prioress’s office, which was unlocked, and was on the telephone for some time. When he emerged he said, “Not a word to the nuns or anyone else, ma’am, if you please. Special Branch are sending their men at once. A watch is to be kept. They hope, if we’re right in thinking the cellar is being used as an ammunition dump, to catch the fellows red-handed. But what did you mean about the two old ladies, ma’am?”
“From a story I shall recount to you, Inspector, and which was told me by one of the children who spent a fortnight of the summer holiday here, I think Miss Lipscombe may have seen at least one of the persons concerned when he passed her bedroom door on his way to the cellar.”
“Mean she might even have recognised him, ma’am?”
“That I cannot say, but I think there is little doubt but that he feared she would remember him if ever she saw him again.”
“And Mrs. Wilks? Anything to do with her leaving the convent the sudden way she seems to have done?”
“She may know one of the men—in fact, I am sure she does—but not in this particular connection. I think she was invited to leave the convent so that the conspirators—one of whom must have known that the bars on her window were removable—could obtain access to the cellar without serious risk of detection. If they had been content to leave their entrances and exits to Sunday evenings during the time of Mass, the chances are that Miss Lipscombe would never have seen them. The trouble was tha
t, having obtained their material (probably in small quantities) they had to store it in a safe place until they could dispose of it, and I suppose they knew of nowhere else to keep it, so it had to be put away as and when it came into their hands.”
CHAPTER 17
Re-Enter Mrs. Wilks
“Friends, blame me not! A narrow ken
Hath childhood ’twixt the sun and sward;
We draw the moral afterward—
We feel the gladness then.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“Could you enlarge on that, ma’am?—explain your theories, as it were? If you’re right, how come that Mrs. Wilks is under no suspicion and could even go to an inquest and give evidence, whereas the other old party was murdered?”
“I would prefer to leave my explanations until I have interviewed Mrs. Wilks and one or two others. If the interviews turn out as I believe they will, I shall make a full report.”
“Very good, ma’am. You won’t go sticking your neck out, though, will you? Now that we know what’s going on, we can reckon we’re dealing with people who won’t stop at much.”
“If at anything. I shall take every precaution, Inspector, you may be sure.”
“And Mrs. Gavin, ma’am? She strikes me as a lady who thinks ‘precautions’ is a dirty word.”
“You have summed her up. I am sending her home on the excuse that there is nowhere here for her to sleep.”
Faced with an ultimatum, Laura began by showing fight, but Dame Beatrice, urbane to the last, overruled her and she departed to spend the night at an hotel in Tewkesbury before returning to the Stone House, Dame Beatrice’s home on the edge of the New Forest.
Dame Beatrice had supper—always a cold meal on Sundays at the convent—with Mrs. Polkinghorne, whose first remark was, “You did not go to Mass.”
“No. I am not a Catholic.”
“Not an excuse valid, I think. You could not receive the sacrament, but you could attend at the church.”
“That is very true.”
“Insult to the prioress not to go.”
“I had not thought of that. If you were staying with a Protestant family, you would attend Church of England evensong, then, in order to please your host?”
Convent on Styx (Mrs. Bradley) Page 18