shone, not so warm as we have it, but it was very pleasant.”
“Then you came back when the others came out from the cinema?”
“But very much sooner. The man, who had driven us over, took me back, and then returned for the others.”
“At what time, then, did you get back here to the guest-house?”
“To the guest-house, no, I do not come there. I was in the church ten minutes, perhaps, and then I was in the cloister in a long chair, and Sister Lucia— she is of my country and very kind—I am only English of my husband— Trust, his name is—she brought me some hot soup and put over me blankets and left me to rest as it is ordered. I fell asleep, it was so warm and comfortable.”
“And at what time, then, did you go into the church?”
“It would have been—let me see—I am to answer you as well as ever I can, because you are asking all these questions for a purpose—so much I can tell— well, now, Vespers are over, and the church is silent when I go in. How much over—that is what you wish to know. My friend, I cannot tell you. It is not long, I think—perhaps it was about a quarter to three. Sister Lucia will know. She came to me in the cloister— she will know at what time she came. Oh, and I think perhaps I was not alone in the church. Someone was praying, too. That person, perhaps, would know.”
It was all perfectly convincing, Mrs. Bradley thought, and nobody with lungs in the condition of this poor girl’s could have risked either a struggle or the carbon monoxide gas. Not that there was the slightest reason for suspecting her. The interesting thing was that, once again, the facts she had been given were proving not to be facts.
She walked with the consumptive girl to the sunny side of the cloister, saw her tucked up by Sister Lucia, and then obtained the approximate time at which this had all been done on the afternoon on which the child had died. Not that it helped. Mrs. Bradley felt in her bones that it could not make any difference. How interesting it would have been, though, if somebody had gone to the bathroom before the arrival of Miss Bonnet at half-past three or just after.
She went back to the guest-house parlour in search of another victim, and found one in the person of the English girl, Philippa Carey, who was residing at the convent for a week or two before she went across to France to take up her novitiate. She was quiet, intelligent and, to Mrs. Bradley’s mind, irrationally enthusiastic at the thought of becoming a nun. This girl remembered that Dom Pius had left the party to go to the museum, and she remembered that the poor young married woman with the troublesome cough had left them at the door of the cinema. She agreed that she herself had gone in with the children, and stated that all the other guests had also gone in to see the show.
“It was Mickey Mouse,” she said, “and some cowboys. A very good programme for children.”
“Then the aunt of the poor little girl who was drowned was at the cinema that afternoon with the rest of you?” Mrs. Bradley exclaimed.
“Yes, certainly she was. She went in just in front of me, and, although, of course, it was dark whilst the films were being shown, I do not think that anybody went out.”
“Did she sit in front of you?”
“Why no. I do not know where she sat. We sat with children on either side of us, and attended to them and not to one another.”
“Did she come home with the rest of the party?”
“I do not remember noticing. But what a dreadful thing for her to come home to!”
“Do you remember how she was dressed?”
“I think so.” The girl looked at her curiously, but Mrs. Bradley offered no explanation of the abrupt and pointed question. “She had on a greenish tweed costume, and over it a big musquash coat, and had a little plume of deer’s hair—you know the ones they sell in Scotland to visitors?—at the side of her hat.”
“I hear she is coming back here after a bit?”
“I have not heard that. Poor woman, she was terribly distressed.”
“Naturally. I wonder whether she tried to get the coroner to bring it in as accidental death?”
The girl shook her head.
“I do not know. I did not attend the inquest. But here in the guest-house she said to me that she could not conceive that a child like little Ursula would dream of doing such a terrible thing.”
“The child was in trouble in school, though, wasn’t she? I heard a rumour that she was exceedingly unhappy.”
A curtain seemed to be drawn over the girl’s eyes. She replied very stiffly.
“I have no knowledge that she was unhappy or in trouble, but no happy child would commit mortal sin, I am certain.”
“I was sent for to prove that the child’s death was accidental,” Mrs. Bradley meekly explained.
“And can you prove it? How wonderful that would be!” Her face lit up as she said it. Mrs. Bradley slowly shook her head.
“Whether I can prove it remains to be seen,” she said. “I think the chances are exceedingly remote. There seems so little to go on.”
“But the evidence of character?”
“Yes, the evidence of character. The last kind of child to be involved in a fatal accident due to disobedience, wouldn’t you say? Quite the last child to break into the guest-house against the very strictest rule of the school. No, no.” She shook her head.
