chapter 19
culprit
“
alfred, lord tennyson: Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.
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The infirmary, a large, cheerful room with a view seawards which was partly blocked by the church, was, when Mrs. Bradley arrived, in the charge of Mother Mary-Joseph, who sat in a corner and, as it was Sunday, sedulously read from a book of religious character; what it was Mrs. Bradley did not know. She was seated out of earshot of any conversation which might be held between Mrs. Bradley and the child, and she kept this distance away all the time that Mrs. Bradley was there.
Mary looked pale, more from fear of getting into trouble than from the consequences of the fall, Mrs. Bradley thought. She greeted her cheerfully, whereupon the child burst into tears. This reaction, in one so obviously phlegmatic, provoked Mrs. Bradley’s interest.
“Come, now,” she said, with brisk kindness. “That’s enough of that. You and I must not waste each other’s time. What were you up to yesterday?”
“I thought I had a clue.”
“What about?”
“About Ursula.”
“Tell me.”
“Ulrica always thought that Ursula was murdered. It frightened me at first, but then I saw that Ulrica was also horribly frightened, and I asked her why, and she said that she supposed she would be the next one, and she didn’t want to die with her sins upon her. She isn’t a Catholic yet, you know. She was sure she was going to be murdered.”
“Rubbish. Accidents will happen,” said Mrs. Bradley.
“Yes, I know. But this was no accident. I found that out last night. Any more than poor Sister Bridget was an accident.”
“Sister Bridget,” said Mrs. Bradley, who knew that the children had heard nothing definite beyond what the first spate of gossip had washed down to the schoolgirls at the very beginning of the affair, “had a nasty experience, and is lucky to be on the way to recovering from it. She is not quite responsible for her actions, as I think we all know, and things may happen to her which would not happen to others who are better able to take care of themselves.”
“But they said she was hit on the head,” said Mary, rightly disregarding this conventional and insincere explanation.
“Of course she was,” Mrs. Bradley vigorously answered. “If people rush about the place at night as though they are burglars, naturally they get hit on the head if the people in charge have anything to hit them with.”
“No one confessed to hitting her, though,” said Mary, with irritating logic.
“Naturally not, since she nearly died of the blow,” said Mrs. Bradley tartly.
“But—”
Mrs. Bradley, who had had considerable experience of adolescents who said: “But,” decided to change the subject.
“You haven’t told me your clue yet,” she remarked.
“Oh, that! Well, I soon realised that things were more dangerous for Ulrica than for me, and, when I thought that, I cheered up quite a lot, because, you see, if it
“Do a—” said Mrs. Bradley, the accusing spectacle of Mother Mary-Joseph, teacher of English, there in the corner of the infirmary and immediately before her eyes.
“Oh, you know—snooping. Like detectives do. I thought perhaps the others had missed something that I might discover, and I thought how lovely that would be.”
“Yes?”
“Oh, yes. Well, we’re never allowed in the guesthouse unless one of the guests invites us, so I made up my mind—I say, you won’t have to tell Mother Francis this?—to get into the guest-house somehow and have a look at that bathroom—
“And what were your plans for getting into the guest-house?”
“Well, Ursula managed it, didn’t she? And she never broke any rules, as far as anyone knew. I thought there must be an easy way in, and it only needed finding.”
“Now this,” said Mrs. Bradley, “is what I’ve felt all along was the very nub of the matter. She never broke any rules, yet she broke one of the strictest rules of all. I understand from the nuns that it is only the most hardened
