“Was she—is that how she was killed?” The nun had gone pale. “How horrible! Could it have been like that? So quick and clever and cruel?”
Mrs. Bradley cackled—a sound which, since she took it for an expression of mirth, startled Mother Mary- Joseph—and replied:
“You see, even if the attacker had been only a little stronger than the victim, it seems as though, having taken her so suddenly and at such a disadvantage, she would find the rest quite easy. Long before I let you go you would have been unconscious if the gas tap had been turned on. Thank you so much for your help. I do hope you will forgive me for using you quite so unceremoniously.”
“We are all under obedience to help the enquiry,” the nun responded, with a little bow to acknowledge Mrs. Bradley’s apology. “May I go now? I have a class.”
When she had gone Mrs. Bradley turned on the gas tap for a second. The gas rushed out with a sharp hissing sound. She turned it off, walked quietly upstairs, opened the bathroom window and climbed out on to the leads. She was wearing a pair of rubber-soled gymnasium shoes which she had borrowed from one of the girls. The climb, she found, was easy enough. She turned first and pushed the window shut, just as she imagined the murderer must have done. Then she groped her way along the flat piece of roof below the window, climbed carefully over the gable, and found herself facing the flat roof of the short passage which, since the three houses had been incorporated into one, joined the end house to the one next door. Along this she crawled, keeping low, and then found herself in view of what had originally been the roof of a garage. Over this she also climbed. She descended to the ground at the end of the converted houses by means of a water pipe. It was clamped into place very firmly with massive, ornamental iron grips, and would not, she thought, pull away from the wall with her weight. On the roof she had thought she could see why the murderer had not needed to make the complete journey over the three converted houses to avoid being seen by the old gardener slapping creosote on the wooden fence with his back to the guest-house windows. The original fences had not been removed when the three houses had been made into one, and those which separated garden from garden still remained, and were six feet high at least. Once past the first of these, the murderer could lie hidden, or could crawl along to the next garden gate and come out on to the road.
The murderer had had bad luck, Mrs. Bradley concluded. The flaw in a well-constructed scheme had been the death of the child from the gas instead of death by drowning. The gas was meant to make her unconscious only, not to kill her. It is never possible to determine the exact amount of carbon monoxide which will cause death; and it is not possible to tell, in the case of any particular supply of coal gas, how much carbon monoxide is present in its constitution, she reflected. The murderer had killed the child instead of stupefying her, and could have had no plan to cover the dire emergency.
She climbed the pipe again and worked her way back towards the bathroom window. Just as her hand was reaching over the sill to grasp the edge of the window to pull it open, she saw—it was less than a shadow— another hand, from inside, grope towards the sill. She flung herself flat on the leads, as a heavy jar of bath salts, the crystals scattering in every direction, flew clean across her and crashed against the trunk of a small, old tree in the garden down below.
Out from the front door came the four eldest orphans, mouths open, Ethel clutching her chest, Bessie with a shower of oaths, Annie breathless and alarmed, Kitty dancing with excitement. Mrs. Bradley, recognising that they would be her saviours, crawled to the edge and waved to them.
“Stay where you are,” she said. “I’m coming down.”
“Thought you was killed,” said Bessie.
“Who was in the bathroom?” Mrs. Bradley demanded when she joined them in front of the guest-house.
“Why, nobody, madam,” they said.
“Let’s go and look,” said Kitty.
“There won’t be anyone there by this time,” said Mrs. Bradley. “There’s been every chance to get away, with none of you on the look-out.”
“Oh, yes, out the back door, but they couldn’t climb over the wall, I bet,” said Bessie. “What say we run? We might ketch ’em, eh? What say?”
But nobody was in sight, although they all ran round through the gateway and tore as hard as they could towards the school.
“Dear me,” said Mother Francis, when she heard of it. “Surely it was very unsafe, in any case, for you to climb about on the guest-house roof, Mrs. Bradley?”
“Yes, I expect so,” Mrs. Bradley meekly replied.
chapter 23
preparation
christopher smart: A Song to David.
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The bishop had been put off. Mrs. Bradley had seen to it. Driven by George to Bermondsey, she had interviewed Father Thomas, caught him up in the car and borne him off to conduct the negotiations which should result in the Bishop’s visit being put off until Thursday, or, at the earliest, Wednesday afternoon. By Wednesday afternoon Ulrica Doyle would be on her way to Southampton.
This being settled, Father Thomas was restored to his presbytery and George drove Mrs. Bradley to Hiversand Bay, where she had booked a room at the hotel. It was the only hotel in the place, modern and fairly comfortable, and at that time of year almost empty. Ulrica Doyle, who had been sent to it under escort earlier in the evening, discovered, to her horror and annoyance, that she and Mrs. Bradley were to share a room, and, what was worse, not a good room, but one on the third floor, one with a window not only not overlooking the sea, but with a sheer
