Death of a Novice

by Cora Harrison

  ‘Excessively so,’ echoed Dr Scher, looking at her attentively.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘I’d guess,’ she went on, ‘from something that the aunt said, that Patsy, Sister Gertrude, was his first love and then he was tempted for a while by the younger and far prettier sister, but afterwards, I think, regretted it. I saw the man just after he heard the news about Sister Gertrude’s death and I would be quite sure that he was grief-stricken and horrified.’

  There was a puzzled silence after she said that.

  ‘So why … so who killed Sister Gertrude?’ It was Dr Scher who asked the question, but Patrick looked at her eagerly, waiting for her answer.

  ‘Her sister killed her,’ said the Reverend Mother. ‘Her sister gave her the chocolates which were injected with the ethylene glycol.’

  ‘So you think her sister got hold of the stuff, got it from her husband. Of course, they probably have some sort of pump to squirt the stuff into the paint, to get it to the right consistency; they’d use it for undercoats as the undercoat would be thinner than the top coat. So that’s what could have been used, injected into the chocolates. Let it stand for a few hours in a warm atmosphere and the hole in the chocolate would probably seal over.’ Dr Scher pondered aloud over the matter while Patrick sat with a puzzled expression on his face.

  ‘So Mr Donovan …’ he said slowly and then stopped. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said and then got up and paced the floor between the window and the fireplace. ‘Why should she kill her sister? Was that why Denis tried to kill his wife? You think that Denis was in love with the older of the two girls, but married the younger. So it was what they call a love triangle. Betty kills her sister because she suspects that her husband loves her better. And then her husband tries to kill her in revenge. So love was the motive, is that right, Reverend Mother?’

  ‘The older that I get,’ said the Reverend Mother, popping her prayer book back into the drawer and closing it firmly. ‘The older I get,’ she continued, ‘the more I realize the importance of money. It comes into almost every aspect in life. No, it was nothing to do with love, though I can see that there was an unhappy triangle between Denis Kelly and the two Donovan sisters. But, in the end, all that has nothing to do with the murder. And so we need to go back to the man who did have money.’

  ‘John Donovan,’ said Patrick slowly and the Reverend Mother gave him an approving nod.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Once I found out that John Donovan died in almost the same way as Sister Gertrude, I realized that it was possible that he was murdered, that this was a crime, was the crime that needed investigating. After all, John Donovan was a very well-off man and all of his money was left to the one daughter, now Betty Kelly.’

  ‘So she …?’ Dr Scher looked from one to the other.

  ‘Or he,’ said Patrick eagerly. ‘Much more likely Denis Kelly killed him using the same method. She, the wife, probably wouldn’t know much about ethylene glycol, may not have known anything. Why should she? She had her household duties and her baby to look after. But he, Denis Kelly, he would. Safety regulations would make sure that he knew the stuff was poisonous. He’d have to warn the workers in the paint department.’ Patrick was thinking hard.

  ‘And why kill Sister Gertrude. That did him no good. The money, all of it, was left to his wife, isn’t that right?’ Dr Scher looked from one to the other.

  ‘It wasn’t he who killed Sister Gertrude,’ said Patrick slowly.

  The Reverend Mother nodded a cordial encouragement to him. ‘That’s right, Patrick,’ she said. ‘We must remember,’ she went on, ‘that something like a sweet tooth can be inherited,’ she said. ‘Sister Gertrude was very fond of sweets. She told me that what she found the hardest part of convent life was not being able to buy sweets for herself. Her sister Betty disliked sweets, liked things such as Marmite, according to the aunt that cared for the sisters after their mother died.’

  ‘So the chocolates were doctored with ethylene glycol and given to John Donovan …’

  ‘I was stupid,’ said the Reverend Mother ruefully. ‘I should have realized that what Sister Catherine told me was of the utmost importance when she saw Sister Gertrude with her sister in the convent garden. Something was being done that would be against the rules. She witnessed that, overheard them laugh about the possibility of her spying for Sister Mary Immaculate. When I asked Betty what she and her sister talked about, on that last afternoon before Sister Gertrude died, she told me, very readily, that they talked about their father. Betty had been tidying out his house, making it ready for a sale. Quite a task, apparently. According to her, he was a man who would keep a spent match in case it might be of use and she certainly wouldn’t have been surprised to come across a half-eaten box of chocolates, and as she did not eat sweets herself, she brought them, in all innocence, up to her sister. And, of course, I should have guessed that it might be that something to eat was handed over, not a pen, not a memento such as a book, where, if I were asked, I would certainly have given my permission for it to be kept. But what if there had been some chocolates left in a drawer? After all, eating sweets and chocolates, well, that was poor Sister Gertrude’s besetting sin. But, of course, I could not think of any reason why Betty should want to poison her sister. Not financial certainly: all of their father’s money was left to her. She and her husband and her little son would be quite rich once probate was granted. I did briefly think about jealousy, but I didn’t think it could be too strong. Why should Betty be jealous? After all she was married to the man, had borne his child and was now about to bring him what would have appeared to both of them as a small fortune. Her sister was happy in the convent. She really posed no threat to Betty who had always been the pretty one of the two sisters. Also, every time I thought of that last day when the two sisters were in the garden, hearing them talk and laugh together, well, there appeared to be a good relationship between them. No, the chocolates were given in all innocence. Betty wasn’t to know that they had already killed her father. She did not live in the same house as he did, so she wouldn’t have known that he had eaten some of them that night.’

  ‘And then Sister Gertrude ate them in the dormitory, after lights were out, I suppose.’ Dr Scher grimaced slightly.

  ‘So the book of evidence against Denis Kelly will be that he poisoned his father-in-law, John Donovan, in order that the man’s entire fortune would come to him, through his wife, of course, but that would be the same thing,’ said Patrick. ‘We’ll have to exhume the body of John Donovan, Dr Scher, and you’ll have to test it for traces of poison. And, of course, in the meantime we can hold Denis Kelly on a charge of attempted murder against his wife. The death of Sister Gertrude will be misadventure, I suppose. No blame will attach to the sister. But what made him attack his wife and try to kill her? And I’m surprised that she would eat and drink in his presence if she had suspected him of murdering her father.’ And then Patrick contradicted himself swiftly. ‘The baby, of course. I heard him myself. He forced her to drink the stuff or else he would throw the baby out from the window.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said the Reverend Mother slowly, ‘whether poor Betty thought, by leaving the empty chocolate box on top of the trunk, she would give him an opportunity to escape. She had told him to open it in the convent, had told him to check whether there were three towels. She had put two and two together. I’d say. Guessed it was Denis. Both her father and her sister had died of what seemed like the same illness and one thing that they had both eaten was those chocolates, the chocolates that her husband gave to her father. It may have been a habit of his to bring little presents of sweetmeats to his father-in-law. When Betty thought about it, when she found the empty box among Sister Gertrude’s things, well, she was probably fairly sure. She perhaps covered her consternation by making a fuss about a missing towel, but underneath she was thinking hard. She couldn’t bear to be the one that sent him to the hangman, but she wanted him to leave, perhaps to go to England. To rem
ove himself from her life and from her baby son. So she gave him instructions to check on the towels before he took the trunk away from the convent and I can only think that was because, when she found the empty chocolate box, she immediately connected her sister’s death with her father’s – the symptoms were identical. Perhaps Denis Kelly had betrayed himself earlier when he heard of the death of Sister Gertrude, when he found out that she had given her sister the half empty box of chocolates. That was something that could have been said in all innocence over the supper table. He could have raged at her, demanded why she did that. In any case, when she found the empty chocolate box, she knew that her sister had eaten the same chocolates as her father and she guessed that her husband was responsible for both deaths. She probably could not bear to live with him as her husband again, but she baulked, as I say, at condemning him to the gallows.’

  ‘Understandable,’ said Dr Scher with a sigh. ‘I don’t suppose that I could endure to do that to someone that I had once loved. I’d give them a chance to escape.’

  ‘You would be wrong, Dr Scher,’ said Patrick firmly. ‘Once someone has murdered once, they will murder again. I’ve seen that before.’

  ‘I wonder what she thought when he came home after all her efforts,’ said Dr Scher.

  ‘He probably took out the chocolate box and came home showing nothing, I suppose. She opened the trunk; the box wasn’t there, she perhaps thought that one of the nuns had thrown it away before the trunk was locked. She may even have been half-relieved. But, of course, he knew that she had guessed the truth. I’ve tested that mug that had Bovril, Reverend Mother, and you were right. It did have ethylene glycol in it, a large amount. Very strong-tasting stuff, Bovril; it cloaked the sweet taste. And, of course, he knew that she wouldn’t have taken a chocolate from him, but she had probably made the Bovril before he arrived. He could have asked her to get something and then slipped the stuff into the mug.’

  ‘She drank it,’ said Patrick in a low voice. ‘She must have known, but still she drank it. I heard him shouting at her to drink it.’

  ‘According to Eileen,’ said Dr Scher, ‘she was forced to drink it or risked having her baby thrown from the window. Mother love is a great thing. Poor girl. She just drank it down, drained it to the last drop. Anything to save her baby.’

  ‘Well,’ said Patrick, stretching his legs and luxuriating in the heat of the fire, ‘well, it’s all ended well. The baby is alive, the mother is alive and the world will not miss someone like Denis Kelly. No doubt that he will be convicted and hanged.’ He had the air of one who is at peace with himself.

  The Reverend Mother said nothing. Her namesake, the saintly Thomas Aquinas believed in capital punishment, but she was not sure that she did. She felt confused and ill-at-ease. She glanced at her two companions. Dr Scher, of course, was used to death. It must be something that he had inured himself against from the time that he had been a medical student.

  Patrick, also, perhaps. His experience as an officer of the law would allow no room for external self-doubt and perhaps, by now that outward self-assurance which he had worn from the start of his career was beginning to be internalized. Just now he looked quite relaxed and completely at ease. Unusual to see him like that, but success was beginning to iron out the lack of confidence from his system and give him the poise and composure that would allow him to enjoy life. She was glad for him.

  But for herself, she could not contemplate the deliberate killing of another human being without an inward shudder, a darkness of the soul. Could there be, should there be another way? Something that would keep the world safe from a murderer like Denis Kelly; that would allow him to live under guard, to have a chance to compensate for that evil impulse of greed which had induced him to murder his father-in-law and to attempt to murder his own wife. Her mind went to the prayer that had been recited at morning Mass in the chapel.

  Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio, contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium. Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur: tuque, Princeps militiae coelestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute, in infernum detrude. Amen.

  The Archangel Michael, she thought, did not kill Lucifer and the other rebels for their terrible sin, but banished them eternally from the presence of Almighty God. Could a solution like that prove an alternative to the brutal hanging of a murderer? Her mind went to the numerous islands that were scattered around the coastline of Ireland. Perhaps one could be made to accommodate criminals such as Denis Kelly where they could live out their lives making recompense for the evil that they had done by growing food to feed the poor of their native city.

  And then she sighed. She had enough problems to solve in her own little world. She had grave doubts about that permanently leaking roof in the junior infants’ classroom. The store of potatoes in Sister Bernadette’s pantry, earmarked to make a nourishing lunch for hungry children, was diminishing at an alarming rate. And she still had to see the bishop in order to discuss the question of the pious Sister Catherine.

  The Reverend Mother got to her feet. ‘I must not keep you any longer; I know that you are both busy men,’ she said as she rang the bell for Sister Bernadette.

  ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ she said to herself and tried to find some comfort from the thought as they both departed.