“I know the answer to that one,” said Marwin Ranby rather shortly. “In one of the cowsheds. That’s where they made it up from the straw and the old sack. They had their firewood all ready. I hadn’t raised any objection to a straightforward bonfire, you see…”
“No one thinks it’s your fault, dear,” she said soothingly.
“Nevertheless,” went on Ranby, more philosophically, “I suppose I should have thought something like this might happen… all the same, I don’t like it. What I would like, Inspector, are those three men over at the Convent first thing in the morning to apologise in person, to the Mother Prioress and the Community. It’s the very least we can do…”
“Certainly, sir,” agreed Sloan peaceably. Ranby had good reason for wanting to keep on the right side of the Reverend Mother. “If you want it that way. I don’t see that it can do any harm.”
But once again he was wrong.
Messrs. Parker, Bullen and Tewn were not too dismayed to find Sloan and Crosby taking an interest in their escapade.
“Just our bad luck that we chose a night when one of the nuns goes and gets herself killed,” grumbled Parker. “Otherwise we stood a good chance of getting away with it.”
“You must admit it was a good joke, Inspector.” Tewn was a fresh-faced boy with curly hair and a few remaining infant freckles. “Especially with old Namby-Pam… with the Principal going to be married at the Convent at the end of the month. Sort of appropriate.”
It was a long, long time since Sloan’s idea of a good joke had been anything so primitive.
“And?” he said dispassionately.
“Well,” said Tewn, “it was a piece of cake, wasn’t it?”
The other two nodded. Bullen, a slow-speaking, well-built boy, said, “No trouble at all.”
“Come on then,” snapped Sloan. “How did you go about it? Ring the front door bell and ask for a spare habit?”
“No, we went to the back door,” said Tewn promptly. “At least to the sort of cellar door.”
“And just opened it, I suppose. Without knocking.”
“Yes,” agreed Tewn blandly. “Yes, that was exactly what we did.”
“At what time was this excursion?”
“About half past nine on Wednesday evening.”
“And you expect me to believe that this door was unlocked?”
“Oh, yes,” said Tewn. “I just put my hand on the door and it opened.”
“And the habit?”
“That was there.”
“Waiting for you?”
Tewn’s freckles coloured up. “That’s right.”
“And you just picked it up and came out again?”
“That’s right.” Tewn poked a finger at Bullen. “I was only inside half a minute, wasn’t I?”
“Less if anything,” said Bullen. “Like I said—no trouble at all.”
“No trouble!” echoed an exasperated Sloan. “That’s where you’re wrong. There’s lots of trouble.”
“But if Tewn was only inside half a minute and Bullen confirms it,” said the third young man, “they can’t have had anything to do with this nun, can they?”
Sloan turned towards him. “You’re Parker, I suppose? Well, there’s just one flaw in your reasoning. How do I know that they’re not both lying? Suppose you tell me where you were at the time?”
“Here in the Institute,” said Parker.
“In the Biology lab, I suppose.”
Parker flushed. “Yes, as it happens I was.”
“Any witnesses to prove it?”
“No… no. I don’t think anyone saw me there.”
“Well, then…” Sloan let the sentence hang unfinished while he surveyed the three of them. “So you three arranged the snaffling of the habit, did you? And you carried out the operation according to plan without any sort of hitch?”
“That’s right,” said Tewn. “We never saw a soul.”
“When you got the habit, what next?”
“Bullen and I brought it back with us. I kept it in my room until yesterday morning and then we made it up into a guy. It was easy,” said Tewn ingenuously, “because nuns don’t have much of a figure, do they?”
“And the glasses,” put in Sloan casually. “Where did you pick them up?”
“What glasses?” asked Tewn.
“The guy that I rescued was wearing glasses,” said Sloan impatiently. “Where did they come from?”
Parker nodded. “Yes, it was. They were on her—it, I mean—when Bullen and I carried it out to the fire.”
“I didn’t see any glasses,” said Tewn. “We put a couple of buttons in for eyes.”
Bullen stirred. “She was wearing glasses when Parker and I went to fetch her for the fire. We thought you’d put them on her, Tewn—they looked proper old-fashioned.”
“Not me,” said Tewn. “I didn’t go back to the cowshed at all after we’d made her up in the morning. I was on the pig rota, remember? We had a farrowing at half past six and I jolly nearly missed my supper.”
“I thought you’d cadged an old pair from Matron,” said Parker. “She wears them just like that.”
Ranby was right: Parker was the most intelligent of the three. Sloan said, “So you didn’t take them from the Convent with the habit?”
“Oh, no,” said Tewn quickly. “Besides we wouldn’t have known they weren’t wanted, would we?”
“Like you knew the habit wasn’t wanted?” suggested Sloan smoothly. “Like you knew the door would be open for you…”
Tewn’s colour flared up again, Parker looked sullen, Bullen quite impassive. All three remained silent.
“If, by any chance, any one of the three of you remembers how it came about that that cellar door was to be open to you on Wednesday evening, and that an old habit that nobody wanted just happened to be lying there for the taking, perhaps you’d be kind enough to let me know. It might, incidentally, just be in your own interests to do so, if you get me.”
Sloan and Crosby went back to the study. Celia Faine was sitting by the fire. She smiled at him. “Here’s the inspector again. How did you find Marwin’s little criminals?”
“Guilty, I hope,” said Ranby. “I don’t think there was any doubt, was there, that they got that habit?”
“None at all, sir. They admitted it.”
“Their idea of a good lark, I suppose.”
“That’s right, sir, but they say they didn’t take the glasses—the ones that the guy was wearing, remember?”
“Yes, Inspector, I remember. I’m not ever likely to forget, but I don’t know who can help you there.”
“You can.”
“Me?” Ranby looked quite startled. “How?”
“By telling me who could have had access to your cowsheds during the day.”
“Cowsheds?” His brow cleared. “The guy—of course. Why, anyone, I suppose. There are all those who go in at milking and to clean and those who teach on milk handling and the Milk Marketing Board people. Any number in one day.”
“The sheds are never locked?”
“I doubt if there’s even a key,” said Ranby. “There’s nothing to steal, you see.”
“So anyone could go in there at any time of the day without it occasioning any interest?”
“Anyone from the Institute, of course. I don’t know about outsiders. The vet’s here often enough, and odd Inspectors—Ministry ones, I mean.”
“I see, sir. Thank you. I think that’s all I need to know for the present. Goodnight, miss, goodnight, sir— sorry to have to disturb you so late…” At the door, he turned and looked back. “These students of yours— are they allowed out into the village at all?”
“Oh, yes, Inspector, but they must be in by nine on a weekday and half past ten at the weekend. That’s early,
