St. Peter's Finger

day—you may have seen an account of it in the paper—a girl of thirteen did exactly the same thing, only it seems that there was nothing wrong with the gas apparatus and that the child was not drowned, but actually succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, although her head was under water when they found her. The coroner gave a verdict of suicide, and the convent, naturally, doesn’t like it much, and neither do the relatives, nor, on the face of it, does it appear to be a reasonable inference.”

“I saw the account, madam. The paper I’ve been reading gives the details. It all happened actually last Monday, so this is the first cut the Sunday papers have had at it. This paper states that the young lady was in trouble with the convent authorities, and was expecting terrible punishment, the nature of which is hinted at, not described. It indicates that this fact was instrumental in assisting the coroner to arrive at his conclusions.”

“Lend me the paper, George, if you’ve finished with it. Oh—that paper?”

“Yes, madam. I should say, myself, they’re skating on the edge of libel in this particular instance, but I dare say they know the type of reader they cater for, and that the nuns won’t take any action. Still, it’s a bit thick in parts, and, I should say, highly-coloured and untruthful.”

“Convents are always news, George.”

She walked away briskly, taking the paper with her, and settled down in her sunny sitting-room to read. A double page had been devoted to the story.

“Suicide or—?” it was headed; and underneath, in slightly smaller type, “Four Nuns in Court. Strong Local Feeling Over Child Found Dead at Convent School. We Want The Truth, say villagers.”

Mrs. Bradley read the two pages very carefully. It was not an ordinary report of the proceedings at the inquest, but claimed to be an eye-witness’ account. Mrs. Bradley disentangled what the coroner actually had said from what the Sunday Flag would like its readers to believe that he had said, and then gave her particular attention to a paragraph in heavy type which emphasised the fact that the gas apparatus, a water heater of the ordinary domestic kind familiarly known as a geyser, had been found by the gas company’s experts to be in perfect order.

“Untampered with by guilty hands,” the paragraph ambiguously and actionably stated, “the water heater could have poisoned nobody. What happened,” it went on to demand in italics and in the name of its readers, “in that fatal bathroom, to that young and innocent girl?”

Mrs. Bradley, almost with reverence, put the paper aside, and went to the telephone.

“Is Philip at home?” she enquired of an unseen listener.

“Yes, Beatrice. How are you? Do you want to speak to him?”

“Doesn’t his department handle all the statistics about gas suicides?”

“Don’t do it, dear. You go a horrible pink. It wouldn’t suit you.”

“It does suit me. I am completely clad in it. Ask Philip to come to the telephone, dear child.”

“Good morning, Aunt Beatrice! Gas? Oh, Lord! Are you on to that convent case already? It’s not in your line. You leave it alone. It’s going to cause a fair amount of stink. We’re still quite Gunpowder Plottish in England, you know.”

“Was it really suicide, Philip?”

“According to the coroner and the Sunday papers there’s no possible shadow of doubt. Plus the fact that the convent system of education is out of date nowadays. Did your paper give due prominence to the coroner’s rider warning all those who have charge of the young not to be too ’arsh with the innocent children?”

“Never mind the coroner. What did the gas people say?”

“Geyser all present and correct. No escape of gas. No evidence that apparatus had been tampered with. Correctly fitted flue to carry off all dangerous waste products. In fact, exit the geyser without stain!”

“Does that mean that if the verdict is correct, the child turned off the gas before she lost consciousness? It doesn’t make sense to me. And how do they know that the geyser was perfectly safe?”

“Look here, if you’re really interested, you ought to go upstairs and test your own geyser, if you’ve got one. The only thing you can actually turn on is the pilot light.”

“I’ll go and see in a minute. But, Philip, tell me your opinion of the verdict.”

“Punk.”

“Yet the child did inhale gas, apparently enough to kill her.”

“Must have done, I take it. No argument about it, and the medical evidence quite clear.”

“So what, child?”

“Oh, Lord! I don’t know. Of course, she may have turned on the pilot light and sucked in the escaping gas, but, if she did, your point holds good. She couldn’t have turned it off again before she became unconscious. Seems to me it must have been an accident. Rather tough on the family, and also the convent, if that’s a fact, although, I suppose, from their point of view, it would be a little better than having it brought in suicide. Either way the convent will be blamed.”

Mrs. Bradley rang off, and went to inspect her geyser. It looked, she thought, a fairly harmless contraption. She lit it, watched the water falling into the bath, twisted the pilot-light round and blew it out. Then she shut the window and door, stood outside on the landing and waited for five or six minutes. Then she opened the door, walked over and turned off the gas. The smell was detectable, but there did not seem to be any dangerous quantity in the air. She shut the door again, quickly, locked it and went downstairs. She picked up a book, settled herself to read, and was still reading when her maid Celestine came in to report that a relative was on the telephone, “and invites you, madame, to a holiday in the south of France until Easter, while the young nephew and niece are still away at school.”

“That settles it,” said Mrs. Bradley firmly. She went to the telephone, refused her sister-in-law’s invitation with the maximum amount of charm and urged, in her own defence, when her sister-in-law became reproachful, that she expected to be working very hard until after Easter. Then she wished her a pleasant holiday, hung up and ascended the stairs to the bathroom.