The Religious Body

minutes before half past seven.”

“Three hours? That’s a long time.”

“There was a lot of traffic.”

“Even so…”

“And I didn’t know the way.”

“Ah,” said Sloan smoothly. “There is that. Did you by any chance take a wrong turning?”

“No,” said Cartwright shortly. “I did not. But I was in no hurry. I had planned to have the evening to myself and most of the following day. I don’t know enough about the routine of convents to know the best time to call on them—but in the event that didn’t matter, did it?”

“This business that you had come all this way to talk to your cousin about, sir, you wouldn’t care to tell me what it was?”

“No, Inspector,” he said decisively. “I should not. I cannot conceive of it having any bearing on her death. It was a family affair.”

“But you’re staying on?”

“Yes, Inspector, I’m staying on.” He sat quite still, a figure not without dignity even in an hotel bedroom. “The Mother Prioress has given me permission to attend Josephine’s funeral but not—as you might have thought— to pay for it. Apparently a nun’s burial is a very simple affair.”

Superintendent Leeyes was unsympathetic. “You’ve had over twenty-four hours already, Sloan. The probability that a crime will be solved diminishes in direct proportion to the time that elapses afterwards, not as you might think in an inverse ratio.”

“No, sir.” Was that from “Mathematics for the Average Adult” or “Logic”?

“And Dabbe says that she died before seven and these women say they saw her after eight-thirty?”

“Just one woman says so, sir.”

“What about the other fifty then?”

“They’d got their heads down. Sister Anne sat in the back row always and apparently it isn’t done to look up or around. Custody of the eyes, they call it.”

Leeyes growled. “And this woman that did see her then, what was she doing? Peeping between her fingers?”

“She could be lying,” said Sloan cautiously. “I’m not sure. She could be crackers if it came to that.”

“They can’t any of them be completely normal, now can they?” retorted Leeyes robustly. “Asking to be locked up for life like that. It isn’t natural.”

“No, sir, but if there had been someone—not Sister Anne—at Vespers it would explain the glasses, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s better than ‘Sister Anne Walks Again’ which is what I thought you were going to say.”

“No, sir, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Neither do I, Sloan,” snapped Leeyes. “I may be practically senile, too, but I don’t see how it explains the glasses either.”

“Disguise,” said Sloan. For one wild moment he contemplated asking the superintendent to cover his head with a large handkerchief to see if he would pass for a nun, but then he thought better of it. His pension was more important. “I reckon, sir, that either there wasn’t anyone at all in Sister Anne’s stall at Vespers or else it was someone there in disguise.”

“Well done,” said Leeyes nastily. “You should come with me on Mondays, Sloan. Learn a bit about Logic. And was it Cousin Harold who was standing there?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“If it was, why the devil didn’t he clear off? We didn’t know he was there. We might never have found out.”

“Those footprints aren’t his.”

“You’re not making much headway, Sloan, are you?”

“Not since I’ve heard from Dr. Dabbe, sir.”

For the first time he got some sympathy.

“It’s usually the doctors,” grumbled Superintendent Leeyes. “Try to pin them down on something and they’ll qualify every single clause of every single sentence they utter. Then, when it’s a blasted nuisance they’ll be as dogmatic as… as…” he glared at his desk in his search for a comparative “… as a lady magistrate.”

Sloan watched the superintendent drive off towards his home and next meal, and went back to his own room. Crosby was there with two large cups of tea and some sandwiches.

“Well, Crosby, what did you make of Sister Damien’s story?”

“Someone wanted us to think Sister Anne was still alive at eight-thirty.”

“Ah, yes, but was it Sister Damien who wanted us to think that? Or was it someone else?”

Crosby took a sandwich but offered no opinion.

“And why did they want us to think that?”

“Alibi?” suggested Crosby.

“Perhaps. No one missed Sister Anne at Recreation so presumably they can move about then more or less as they like.”

“More or less, sir,” echoed Crosby darkly.

Sloan grinned. The man had a sense of humour after all. “Did you give them back their keys?”

“Yes, sir. I went round all their cupboards with that Sister Lucy and opened them up. Nothing much there — food, stores and what have you. It was a hefty bunch of metal all right. Sister Lucy wears it round her waist all the time. They were certainly glad to have them back again.”

“What about their local standing?”

“High, sir. I checked with quite a few people in the village. They like them. They aren’t any trouble. Their credit is good and they pay on the nail for everything. They live carefully, not wasting anything, and they do as much of their shopping as possible in Cullingoak.”

“That always goes down well.”

“I got on to Dr. Carret, too. Only on the telephone though. He was out when I went there. He was called to the Convent when Sister Anne was found, realised she hadn’t fallen downstairs in the ordinary way and sent for us.”

“Very observant of him, that was. Is your standing with the canteen manageress good enough for another couple of cups?”

Apparently it was, for Crosby brought two refills back within minutes.

Sloan picked up a pencil. “Now, Crosby, where are we now?”

“Well, sir, yesterday we had this body that we thought had been murdered. Today we know it has been. Weapon, something hard but blunt, probably touched by Sister Peter early yesterday morning.”

“And still to be found.”

“Yes, sir. We know that Sister Anne was also Josephine Mary Cartwright and that her mother said ‘Never darken these doors again’ a long time ago. And that when her mother dies she was due to come into a lot of money.”

“Only if she outlived her, Crosby. If she died first it reverts to Uncle Joe and his heirs, one of whom is camping at The Bull for some reason not yet revealed tous.”

“Well, there’s money for someone in it somewhere, sir.”

“Show me the case where there isn’t, Crosby, and I may not know how to solve it.”

“Sir, did that thin one, Damien, know that if Sister Anne died before her uncle, the uncle got the lot?”

Sloan nodded approvingly. “That is something I should dearly like to know myself. You realise we have only got her word for it that Sister Anne—or someone she thought was Sister Anne—was at Vespers at eight-thirty? The other one—Sister Michael—what she said wasn’t evidence. More like hearsay.”

Crosby stopped, his cup half way to his lips. “You mean Sister Damien might be lying about that?” It was clearly a new idea to him.

“Don’t look so shocked, Crosby.”

“I didn’t think they would lie, sir.”