He pulled himself together. “Had she any special connection with Sister Anne? Was she a friend of hers, for instance?”
“Friendship is not permitted in a Convent. We are all Sisters here. She would have known Sister Anne to just the same extent as we all knew Sister Anne. No less and no more.”
“And you knew she wanted to leave—as a Community, I mean?”
“Yes, we knew she wanted to leave.”
“If, marm,” he persisted, “Sister Anne had been in a similar frame of mind, do you think you would have known?”
“Yes, Inspector,” she said with certainty. “You probably do not realise how close are the lives we lead here. Private life, in the usual sense, does not exist. One therefore becomes very aware of the thoughts, not to say the spiritual condition, of one’s Sisters. It is inevitable, and often does not even require formulation into words. Sister Anne, I do assure you, was not contemplating renouncing her vows.”
Sloan and Crosby went back to Berebury Police Station. Sloan spread out on his desk the list of names that the Reverend Mother had given him. They had barely sat down when the telephone beside Sloan rang.
“Yes. Speaking. Who?” It wasn’t a local call.
“Jenkins,” said a voice. “You rang me in London yesterday, remember? About a family called Cartwright. You still interested?”
“I am. Go on.”
“I think you’re on to something, Inspector. Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons have made a move.”
“Have they?” asked Sloan cautiously. “What sort of a move?”
“Towards going public. It seems, and I think this will interest you—that they have had everything prepared for some time.”
“Just waiting for someone to say the word?”
“So it would seem,” said the London man. “These things take time, you know. Bankers to be instructed, brokers to be interested and so forth, to say nothing of organising some useful advance publicity. Sounds as if they’re going to chance their arm about the publicity build-up and go all out for speed. They’ll get a good bit from the Sundays, of course. They’ll be laying that on now.”
“How much speed do they want?”
“According to my informant, and he’s usually reliable,” said Jenkins, “applications will open at ten o’clock next Thursday morning and close at one minute past. I don’t know at what sort of figure but I dare say they’ll be over- subscribed. They’re a well-organised firm.”
“You can say that again,” said Sloan dryly.
“What’s that? Oh, yes, I was forgetting your end.”
“So they’ll be a public company at one minute past ten next Thursday morning?”
“That’s it. Provided they deposit the necessary Articles of Association, seals and what-have-you with the Registrar and comply with all the rules and regulations and keep up with their paper work.”
“Oh, they will,” Sloan assured him. “They will. I don’t think we need worry about that.”
“Going to put in for some?” asked Jenkins.
“Some what?”
“Shares.”
Sloan laughed. “I’m not a betting man.”
“There’s no risk,” said the other seriously. “Cartwright’s Consolidated Carbons must be one of the safest firms in the industry.”
“I wasn’t thinking about their carbons.”
“No, no, of course not. There’s just one thing, Inspector, though. If you’ve got any reservations about the company and the City gets to hear about them before Thursday it’ll cost someone a great deal of money.”
“And after Thursday?”
“It’ll still cost a great deal of money but different people will lose.”
“And that’s business?”
“That’s business, Inspector.”
“I think I’ll stick to police work.”
“I should,” agreed Jenkins. “Much cleaner.”
Sloan put down the telephone. “Curiouser and curiouser, Crosby. That needs a bit of thinking about.” He smoothed out the list of nuns for the second time. “Have you got the name of the one that got away?”
Crosby produced his notebook. “Miss Eileen Lome, no fixed address…”
“Surely…”
“Last known address, then, sir.”
“That’s more like it.”
“144, Frederick Street, Luston. Sister Bertha that was.”
“We must see her, Crosby, just in case she can tell us anything.”
“Yes, sir.” The telephone rang again. Crosby answered it, and then handed over the receiver. “For you, sir, I think. I can’t quite hear who it is—it’s a bit faint like.”
“Inspector Sloan here. Who is that?”
“The Convent of St. Anselm, Inspector. It’s Sister Gertrude speaking. Can you come quickly, Inspector, please? It’s Sister Ninian. She was walking through the shrubbery…” the voice faded away.
“What happened to her?” asked Sloan urgently.
“Hallo, Inspector, are you there? This is Sister Gertrude from the Convent. It’s about Sister Ninian…”
“I heard that bit. What has happened to Sister Ninian?”
“Nothing, Inspector, not to her. To somebody else…”
“What has happened?” shouted Sloan.
“Another accident,” came the voice of Sister Gertrude distantly.
“Listen carefully, Sister. Keep the lower part of the telephone in front of your lips while you are talking and tell me who the accident has happened to.”
The answer came so loudly that he jumped.
“We don’t know who he is.”
“He? You mean it’s a man?”
“That’s right, Inspector. He’s dead in the shrubbery as I said. Sister Ninian found him.”
“This is very important, Sister. What sort of a man? Can you describe him?”
“Oh, yes, Inspector, easily. Young, with curly hair, oh—and a few freckles. Do you know him?”
Sloan groaned aloud.
13
« ^ »
It was a subdued Polycarp who opened the grille and then the Parlour door, and a white and slightly shaking Sister Lucy who greeted them there. A young, silent Sister was with her.
“Mother said to take you straight to the shrubbery, Inspector, as soon as you arrived.” The religious decorum was still there but it was wavering a little in the interests of speed. “It’s quickest if you come through the house and out through the garden room.”
She led the way through the building, past the magnificent staircase, down the dim corridor where Sister Anne had died and through a door into the room of the flower vases.
She turned a drawn face to him. “We don’t know what happened at all, Inspector. Or when.”
He nodded without slackening his pace.
“You probably haven’t met Sister Ninian, Inspector. She’s one of our older Sisters. She is very fond of gardening and she often takes a turn through the grounds to keep an eye on things. She was just walking along this path when she turned down here.”
“Down here” turned out to be a narrow path running round the perimeter of the Convent grounds. Sloan caught sight of black-habited figures among the bare winter trees. They were clustered round a still form lying
