‘One of them offered me five hundred pounds for letting him take my photograph,’ Sister Katherine said, joining them.
‘Did you accept?’ Sister Joan enquired.
‘No, of course not!’ Sister Katherine’s delicately pretty face flushed. ‘It was a great deal of money though. It would’ve been a tremendous help to the community. If this goes on much longer we shall never get any more postulants and then we’ll really be in trouble for the future. Can’t you ask your detective sergeant friend to send them all away or something?’
‘Sisters, kindly stop chattering and prepare your minds and hearts for chapel,’ Mother Dorothy said severely, arriving on the scene in her usual brisk way.
Scolded, they filed into the chapel where Father Malone hovered at the door of the sacristy.
The poetic grace of the benediction washed away other cares. Benediction proper, as opposed to prayers led by Mother Dorothy, was held on Wednesdays and Sundays. Father Malone was taking more than his share of services this week, Sister Joan thought, and suppressed a smile. Father Malone was as keen as anybody else to find out what was going on.
The Angel of the Presence dismissed, they filed out again. Sister Teresa caught up with Sister Joan.
‘Do you think they’ll have finished soon up in the storerooms?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know whether or not to offer them a meal.’
‘Ask Constable Petrie. He’s in the kitchen drinking tea this moment,’ Sister Perpetua said.
Sister Teresa hurried off.
‘I’m glad whenever Father Malone gives benediction.’ Sister Hilaria had drifted up. ‘Father Stephens is an estimable young man and recites the litany beautifully but when he elevates the Host I am always conscious of how saintly he looks, whereas when Father Malone does so I see only the Host.’
‘I wish I could sum things up as well as you do,’ Sister Joan envied. ‘You’d make a marvellous detective, Sister, because you go to the heart of the matter. You’d be sure to solve these murders.’
‘I heard there’d been murder done.’ Sister Hilaria blinked her rather prominent grey eyes and sighed. ‘Such a pity that people don’t worry about the quality of the life led rather than the manner of the death.’
‘But truth is important too, surely!’ Sister Joan exclaimed. ‘Wrongdoing should be punished.’
‘Evil feeds on itself,’ Sister Hilaria said tranquilly. ‘In the end it eats itself up.’
She went on up the stairs, having said what she intended to say and having shown not the slightest interest in what was going on around her. Or did she simply regard everything from a more rarefied point of view?
‘Sister, I can’t find Alice,’ Sister Teresa said, hurrying back along the kitchen corridor. ‘I don’t want her wandering about with all these reporters at the gate.’
‘She wouldn’t harm a fly!’
‘No, but she’d go off with anyone who offered her a biscuit. I have to help Sister Marie with the serving. Could you—?’
‘I’ll get Alice, Sister. I’ll be eating my supper later than the rest of you anyway since I’m reading.’
‘Thank you, Sister. I’m very grateful.’ Sister Teresa bustled back again.
Sister Joan pulled down her veil and opened the front door. Outside darkness had fallen but the lights set up by the policemen still up in the storerooms and patrolling the grounds cut through the gloom. It was still unseasonably mild.
‘Alice! Alice, here, girl! Good girl!’ She raised her voice.
‘Your dog’s in the stable, Sister — leastways she was five minutes ago,’ a constable informed her, materializing from one of the parked cars.
‘Thank you, Officer.’
Sister Joan hurried round the corner and headed for the back yard. As she approached the stable Lilith whinnied a greeting and Alice bounded past her, barking.
‘Go into the kitchen.’ Sister Joan opened the back door and shooed the dog within where she leapt joyfully on Constable Petrie.
Lilith whinnied again.
‘One second then,’ Sister Joan allowed, hurrying across the cobbles. ‘I haven’t time to talk to you now.’
Lilith evidently didn’t believe her but stretched her neck from her stall and stamped her hooves impatiently.
‘It’s too late for a walk, girl. Tomorrow I’ll take you. Here!’
A basket of carrots stood on the floor, Sister Martha’s attempt to wean the ageing pony off sugar lumps. Sister Joan bent to take one and was suddenly jerked backward, something encircling her neck from behind and jack-knifing her until her spine felt ready to snap. Instinctively she flung her hands up to her throat where something was twisting tightly, catching her breath, filling the stable with little dancing stars, drumming the blood in her ears.
She forced herself to go limp and as the grip relaxed for a fraction of a second thrust her fingers between the noose and her skin, drawing one anguished breath that partly cleared her head just as a voice called cheerfully from the yard, ‘Are you coming in, Sister? I promised to see everybody safely indoors before I went off duty.’
Constable Petrie had scarcely begun the sentence before the rope or cord was whipped clear and she was thrust so violently against the half door of Lilith’s stall that the pony reared back in alarm. Footsteps padded cross the cobbles and were gone.
Her throat was hurting and tears had forced themselves beneath her lids. She twisted about, taking great gulping mouthfuls of air, her hand automatically reaching to soothe the trembling animal.
‘Good girl!’ Her whisper was hoarse but at least her windpipe didn’t appear to be damaged. ‘Good girl, easy now.’
Shakily she bent and took out a carrot which Lilith accepted grumblingly. Then she walked unsteadily across to the kitchen.
‘Are you all right, Sister?’ Constable Petrie had opened the back door.
‘Fine,’ she got out, grateful for the concealing veil that hid her face and must also have helped to save her life.
‘I’ll be off then. There’ll be a man up in the storeroom area but most of the stuff has gone now. Detective Sergeant Mill is coming over in the morning to have a look round the library but we’ll be finished by the weekend.’ ‘Night, Sister.’
‘God bless.’ To her relief her voice came out fairly normally as he passed her.
There was no point in telling anyone yet or in trying to raise the alarm. By now he would be away on to the moor. The unpleasant thought that he seemed to come and go as he chose without being noticed nagged at her nerves. She went to the cupboard and helped herself to a teaspoonful of honey, letting it trickle down her throat. There were no mirrors in the convent but the back of a gleaming copper pan showed dark bruises on her throat just above the round white collar of her habit. She took off her veil and tucked it round her neck, drew several deep breaths and went swiftly along the corridor and up the stairs.
The meal had begun. Heads were bent over the cabbage soup and the dishes of salt cod and steamed vegetables stood on the serving table. Someone — Sister David, she guessed — had put the Jeanne d’Arc typescript on the lectern.
Sister Joan prostrated herself on the floor according to custom for a latecomer and went to the lectern. Her throat ached and despite the honey her voice sounded slightly hoarse.
‘During her months at court after the crowning and anointing of the Dauphin, Jeanne indulged her very feminine delight in rich clothes, continuing to dress as a male but wearing the most fashionable doublets with hanging sleeves lined with cloth of gold and silver, silk hose and high boots of calfskin. On her cropped head she sported hats trimmed with coloured feathers and her gloves were lined with silk, but her greatest pleasure lay in the rings her family had given her. She often touched them, turning them about on her fingers, and for her sword she had a scabbard made of white leather lined with scarlet velvet. All the rest of her captain’s pay was given to the poor for whom she had great compassion.’
‘Sister Joan, you sound as if you’re coming down with a cold
.’ Mother Dorothy had held up her hand to stop the reading. ‘Would you like someone to take over the reading?’
‘Thank you, Mother Prioress, but I think I’ll be all right,’ Sister Joan said.
‘Very well. Sister Perpetua will give you something for it afterwards. Continue.’
‘At that time there was, of course, great poverty in France due to the war and two bad harvests. Jeanne asked for and was granted the remission of all taxes in perpetuity for her own beloved village of Domrémy and the neighbouring village of Greux—’
‘Let us give thanks to the Lord for the food we have eaten.’ Mother Dorothy recited the brief grace; napkins were folded; the few crumbs on the table swept into a basket for the birds; the rest of the community filed into recreation apart from Sister Hilaria who went out, Bernadette at her heels, to wait for Sister Teresa and Sister Marie; Sister Joan sat down and ate her cold cabbage soup.
The attack, she reasoned, hadn’t been a serious attempt to kill her. It had been a warning to her, a warning to back off and not to meddle. Had her attacker really wanted her dead he could have snapped her neck like a twig. She wondered what he had been doing in the stable. Probably playing his old game of ‘catch me if you can’. It would have been easy to mingle with the reporters at the front gate, easy to evade the two constables patrolling the extensive grounds.
‘Fish, Sister?’ Sister Marie had returned and was looking at her enquiringly.
‘No, thank you, Sister. I’ll go and get something for my throat,’ Sister Joan said.
‘I’ll get Sister Perpetua,’ Sister Marie said.
‘No, don’t trouble her. I know where she keeps the cough linctus,’ Sister Joan began, only to be interrupted by Sister Perpetua herself who emerged from the recreation room as she was speaking.
‘You may know where I keep it, Sister, but you’re not the infirmarian,’ Sister Perpetua scolded. ‘Come along. Coltsfoot and honey with a drop of whisky is better than any branded product. They say there’s a bug going around. If you want my opinion doctors nowadays call everything a bug to disguise their own ignorance.’
In the cluttered infirmary the dose was measured out, Sister Perpetua’s expression changing as she took a closer look at her younger colleague.
‘Tucking a veil into your collar won’t remove the bruises any quicker,’ she said, gimlet-eyed. ‘Has someone tried to strangle you? Or hang you? That’s a rope burn.’
‘I was attacked just before supper when I went into the stable to see Lilith.’
‘You didn’t report it?’ Sister Perpetua looked disapprovingly.
‘I will do so in the morning when Detective Sergeant Mill comes. It wasn’t a serious attempt to kill me.’
‘Just having a little joke, was he?’ Sister Perpetua said grimly. ‘What about the rest of us? Is this maniac going to play more jokes on the rest of the community?’
‘He’ll be gone by now. I think he was hanging around, to test his own nerve as much as anything else, and then he recognized my voice when I spoke to Lilith and — yes, of course! Lilith wasn’t whinnying to welcome me! She was greeting her old master! He was always fond of animals, I believe.’
‘That will be comforting to remember when someone tries to throttle me,’ Sister Perpetua said. ‘And who is he?’
‘Grant Tarquin.’
‘Grant Tarquin died, didn’t he? I remember hearing something about it last year.’
‘He’s supposed to have died abroad and his body was brought back and buried in the old cemetery with the rest of his ancestors,’ Sister Joan said, ‘but I think he’s still alive. I’m sure he’s still alive.’
‘Then who was buried?’
‘Not Grant Tarquin,’ Sister Joan said. ‘Sister, the body in the storeroom has been there for about twenty years, just before Sir Robert died and left the estate away from his son. I think that Grant Tarquin decided to try to get rid of the body. So he—’
‘You had better rest your voice,’ Sister Perpetua said firmly. ‘I assume you’ve told the police your theory?’
‘They have an exhumation order.’
Sister Perpetua gave her a frowning look, shook her head and took a few sips from the whisky bottle she was corking up.
‘You had better watch your back, Sister,’ she said at last. ‘Put a scarf round your throat. It’s the usual thing to do when one has a sore throat and there’s no sense in alarming the community unnecessarily. Tell Mother Prioress about it in the morning.’
‘Yes, Sister.’
Going meekly up to the recreation room with a short scarf wound about her throat she hoped her superior wouldn’t take the alarm and insist on her remaining indoors until the case had been cleared up.
As she came from the blessing as the grand silence began she was amused to see Sister Perpetua waiting for her with a mulish look on her broad, freckled face that dared her to evade her surveillance. Not that she would have done, Sister Joan thought. It was comforting to have someone with her as she stepped across to the stable, to have Sister Perpetua shine her torch into the darkest corners and point with a nod of the head to a length of thin rope lying just inside the door.
Sister Joan picked it up, winding it round her wrist, gave Lilith’s velvety nose a stroke and emerged, while Sister Perpetua captured Alice who seemed inclined to go off on patrol again, and walked like a bulky bodyguard at her heels as she went back into the kitchen.
Another thing had become clear. Whoever had cut Lilith’s rein in the churchyard and led her away had done so without any apparent trouble. Lilith had a placid nature but she wasn’t used to being handled by complete strangers. She had gone quietly then with someone she dimly recognized.
She wished it was possible to discuss recent events with Sister Perpetua, whose practical common sense was a welcome balance to any flights of fancy in which she herself might indulge, but the grand silence was broken only in an emergency. In that silence they went round, turning lights low, checking locks and bolts, returning to the kitchen where Sister Perpetua motioned her to a chair and proceeded to brew a pot of strong tea, giving one cup to Sister Joan and carrying the others through to the chapel wing for the guarding constabulary.
The killer was taking the craziest risks, Sister Joan thought, sipping her tea. To hang round the stable with police on the premises was — why had he come? Had he hoped to slip into the chapel and thence into the main house? She shivered at the picture that conjured up.
Or did he take these risks because, deep down, in that part of him where animals were loved and sanity dwelt, he wanted to be caught?
Sister Perpetua returned and pointed decisively towards the door. There was no point in arguing silently with the infirmarian even if she had felt like it, and she rose obediently and went up the stairs with the older sister looming behind like a very practical guardian angel, got into bed and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.
Morning had brought the damp mist back, blurring the first streaks of dawn, wafting past the windows like mislaid ectoplasm. Her throat felt better though it was tender to touch. She rose, washed her face, cleaned her teeth, pulled on her habit, tucking the scarf round her neck and draping the dark veil ready to be pulled down if any reporters hove into view. They had apparently balked at spending a night in the open, however, for when she opened the front door and peered through the half dark towards the gates she saw nothing but the grass and the drive and the moor beyond.
A constable, looking dark-chinned and jowly at this early hour, descended from the storerooms and accepted the cup of coffee she had made with alacrity.
‘Very nice of you, Sister! All’s quiet then. It’s my belief that whoever’s been doing these murders is miles away by now. You nuns get up early, don’t you?’
‘Best time of the day!’ Sister Joan said brightly, having managed to convince herself of that fact during her novitiate.
‘If you say so, Sister.’ He gulped his coffee thirstily.
She picked up the wooden rattle whic
h roused the other sisters just as the telephone rang in the kitchen passage.
‘Detective Sergeant Mill? Has anything happened?’
She had rushed to pick up the receiver, anticipation speeding her pace. It was very early for a call, which meant that something had happened.
At the other end of the line someone chuckled. Her fingers gripped the receiver more tightly, her heart hammering.
‘We have a secret, the Devil and I,’ a voice whispered and chuckled again.
Then the phone went dead.
Thirteen
‘Sister Joan.’ Mother Dorothy detained her as she was leaving the room after breakfast. ‘Detective Sergeant Mill rang earlier. Apparently he hasn’t time this morning to come up to the convent but requests that you go down to the police station instead. Of course I gave permission. I understand that a member of the forensic team is to have a look round the library so Sister David will escort him there.’
‘Thank you, Mother Prioress.’ Sister Joan went to put on her cloak and almost bumped into Sister Perpetua.
‘And where are you off to now?’ the elderly nun demanded.
‘I’m driving down to the police station, Sister — and honestly I won’t need a bodyguard,’ Sister Joan said. ‘I’ll keep the windows closed and the doors locked and the only person I’ll wave to will be Brother Cuthbert, so don’t worry.’
She went past swiftly before the other could raise any well-intentioned objections.
The earlier telephone call had shaken her more than she liked to admit. She checked that the doors of the van were locked and the windows wound up before she pulled down her veil and drove out of the yard and round to the front gates where a large policeman was chatting to a group of reporters. Cameras flashed as she speeded past, foot hard down, tiptilted profile unyielding behind the concealing veil. The one thing dreaded in any convent was unwelcome publicity. It was the one thing she had always been very careful to avoid when helping out the police in previous cases.
Detective Sergeant Mill was at his desk, a certain suppressed excitement in his manner as he rose and nodded towards a chair.
A VOW OF POVERTY an utterly gripping crime mystery Page 17