“I confess my fault,” began Sister Peter in a voice that was far from steady, “to God and to you, Mother Abbess, and to all the Sisters that I have committed the great sin of damaging the Gradual…” There was an indrawing of breaths that would have done credit to a chorus in their unity. “… by placing a thumb mark on it,” went on Sister Peter bravely. “For this and all my other faults and those I have occasioned in others, I humbly ask pardon of God and penance of you, Mother Abbess, for the love of God.” She finished in a rush and knelt there, eyes cast down.
The Reverend Mother considered the kneeling figure. “May the Lord forgive you your faults, my dear child, and give you grace to be faithful to grace. Say a
In the general bustle and end of silence after breakfast, Sister Gertrude sought out Sister Radigund.
“Sister Anne? She’s not ill that I know of. She might have gone to the sick bay on her own, of course, though it’s not usual…”
It was expressly forbidden as it happened, but it would have been uncharitable of Sister Radigund to have said so.
“… I’ll go up after Office if you like, to make sure.”
“Thank you,” said Sister Gertrude gratefully. She wondered now if she should have reported the empty bedroom. Her mind was more on that than on Sext, and afterwards she waited anxiously at the bottom of the staircase for Sister Radigund.
“She’s not in the sick bay,” said the Infirmarium, “nor back in her own cell either. I’ve just checked.”
“I think,” said Sister Gertrude, “that we’d better go to the Parlour, don’t you?”
They were not the only Sisters waiting at the Reverend Mother’s door. Sister Jerome, the Convent’s most skilled authority on manuscript illumination, and Sister Peter were both there too. They knocked and a little bell rang. Sister Gertrude sighed. That was where the world and the Convent differed so. In the Convent to every sound and every speech there was a response. In the world—well…
The four Sisters trooped in. The Mother Superior was working on the morning’s post with Sister Lucy, the Bursar. There were several neat piles of paper on the table, and Sister Lucy was bending over a notebook.
The Mother Superior looked up briskly. “Ah, yes, Sister Peter. The mark on the Gradual. I’m sure that Sister Jerome will be able to remove it, whatever it is. These culpable faults are all very well but we can’t have you—er —making a meal of them, can we? Otherwise they become an indulgence in themselves and that would never do.” She gave a quick smile. “Isn’t that so, Sister Jerome? Now, stop looking like a Tragedy Queen and go back to…”
Sister Peter burst into tears. “That’s just it, Mother,” she wailed. “Sister Jerome says…” She became quite incoherent in a fresh paroxysm of tears.
“What does Sister Jerome say?” asked the Reverend Mother mildly.
Sister Jerome cleared her throat. “That mark, Mother. I think it’s blood.”
Sister Gertrude’s knees felt quite wobbly. She gulped, “And we can’t find Sister Anne anywhere.”
2
« ^ »
Inspector C. D. Sloan had never been inside a Convent before.
He had, he reckoned, been inside most places of female confinement in his working life—hospitals, prisons, orphanages, offices, and even—once—a girls’ boarding school. (That had been in pursuit of a Ward in Chancery whom a great many other people had been pursuing at the same time. Sloan had got there first, though it had been a near thing.)
But never so much as a monastery, let alone a Convent.
The call came into Berebury Police Station just before ten in the morning. The Criminal Investigation Department of the Berebury Division of the Calleshire Constabulary was not large, and as his sergeant was checking up on the overactivities of a bigamist, he had no choice at all about whom he took with him to the Convent: Crosby, Detective-Constable, William. Raw, perky, and consciously representing the younger generation in the force, he was one of those who provoked Superintendent Leeyes into observing (at least once every day) that these young constables weren’t what they were.
“You’ll do, I suppose,” said Sloan resignedly. “Let’s go.” He stepped into the police car and Crosby drove the five and a half miles to Cullingoak yillage. He slowed down at the entrance to a gaunt red-brick building just outside Cullingoak proper and prepared to turn into the drive. Sloan looked up.
“Not here. Farther on.”
Crosby changed gear. “Sorry, sir, I thought…”
“That’s the Agricultural Institute. Where young gentlemen learn to be farmers. Or young farmers learn to be gentlemen.” He grunted. “I forget which. The Convent is the next turning on the right.”
It wasn’t exactly plain sailing when they did find the entrance.
There was a high, close-boarded fence running alongside the road and the Convent was invisible behind it. The double doors set in it were high and locked. Crosby rattled the handle unsuccessfully.
“Doesn’t look as if they’re expecting us.”
“From what I’ve heard,” said Sloan dryly, “they should be.”
Eventually Crosby found his way in through a little door set in the big one.
“I’ll open it from the inside for the car,” he called over, but a minute or two later he reappeared baffled. “I can’t, Inspector. There’s some sort of complicated gadget here…”
“A mantrap?” suggested Sloan heavily.
“Could be. It won’t open, anyway.”
His superintendent didn’t like his wit and his constables didn’t appreciate it: which was, if anything, worse.
“Then we’ll have to walk,” he said.
“Walk?”
“Walk, Crosby. Like you did in the happy days of yore before they put you in the C.I.D. In fact, you can count yourself lucky you don’t have to take your shoes off.”
Crosby looked down at his regulation issues.
“Barefoot,” amplified Sloan.
Crosby’s brow cleared. “Like that chap in history who had to walk through the snow?”
“Henry Four.”
“He’d upset somebody, hadn’t he?”
“The Pope.”
Crosby grinned at last. “I get you, sir. Pilgrimage or something, wasn’t it?”
“Penance, actually.”
Crosby didn’t seem interested in the difference, and they plodded up the drive together between banks of rhododendrons. It wasn’t wet, but an unpleasant early morning dampness dripped from the dank leaves. Nothing grew under the bushes. The drive twisted and turned, and at first they could see nothing but the bushes and trees.
Sloan glanced about him professionally. “Pretty well cared for really. Verges neat. No weeds. That box hedge over there was clipped properly.”
“Slave labour,” said Crosby, crunching along the drive beside him. “Don’t these women have to do as they’re told? Vow of obedience or something?” He kicked at a stone, sending it expertly between two bushes. “Anyone can get their gardening done that way.”
“Anyone can tell you’re still single, Crosby. Let me tell you that a vow of obedience won’t get your gardening done for you. My wife promised to obey—got the vicar to leave it in the marriage service on purpose —but it doesn’t signify. And,” he added dispassionately, “if you think that shot would have got past the Calleford goalkeeper next Saturday afternoon, you’re mistaken. He’s got feet.”
They rounded a bend and the Convent came into view, the drive opening out as they approached, finishing in
